Constitutional Law 101

On Martin Luther King Day, Former Vice President Al Gore gave a speech that was largely ignored by the media. While flipping through the channels this morning, we came across a rebroadcast of that speech and were not only inspired by his words, but learned quite a bit. I doubt that I would have understood as much of it as I did, had Downtown Dad not been there to translate for me - much like he does when we watch West Wing. When it was over, we were happy that we'd stopped flipping to listen, but sad that more people probably wouldn't hear it. Obviously, I'm in the majority of people who need a translator when listening to politicians. We concluded that what America needs most right now is a mandatory class in Constitutional Law. But since that's not going to happen, I thought I'd copy the transcript of his speech here, just in case someone happens onto this as they are flipping through the blog channels...

Congressman Barr and I have disagreed many times over the years, but we have joined together today with thousands of our fellow citizens-Democrats and Republicans alike-to express our shared concern that America's Constitution is in grave danger.

In spite of our differences over ideology and politics, we are in strong agreement that the American values we hold most dear have been placed at serious risk by the unprecedented claims of the Administration to a truly breathtaking expansion of executive power.

As we begin this new year, the Executive Branch of our government has been caught eavesdropping on huge numbers of American citizens and has brazenly declared that it has the unilateral right to continue without regard to the established law enacted by Congress precisely to prevent such abuses. It is imperative that respect for the rule of law be restored in our country.

And that is why many of us have come here to Constitution Hall to sound an alarm and call upon our fellow citizens to put aside partisan differences insofar as it is possible to do so and join with us in demanding that our Constitution be defended and preserved.

It is appropriate that we make this appeal on the day our nation has set aside to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who challenged America to breathe new life into our oldest values by extending its promise to all of our people.

And on this particular Martin Luther King Day, it is especially important to recall that for the last several years of his life, Dr. King was illegally wiretapped-one of hundreds of thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government during that period.

The FBI privately labeled King the "most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country" and vowed to "take him off his pedestal." The government even attempted to destroy his marriage and tried to blackmail him into committing suicide.

This campaign continued until Dr. King's murder. The discovery that the FBI conducted this long-running and extensive campaign of secret electronic surveillance designed to infiltrate the inner workings of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and to learn the most intimate details of Dr. King's life, was instrumental in helping to convince Congress to enact restrictions on wiretapping.

And one result was the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act (FISA), which was enacted expressly to ensure that foreign intelligence surveillance would be presented to an impartial judge to verify that there was indeed a sufficient cause for the surveillance. It included ample flexibility and an ability for the executive to move with as much speed as the executive desired. I voted for that law during my first term in Congress and for almost thirty years the system has proven a workable and valued means of affording a level of protection for American citizens, while permitting foreign surveillance to continue whenever it is necessary.

And yet, just one month ago, Americans awoke to the shocking news that in spite of this long settled law, the Executive Branch has been secretly spying on large numbers of Americans for the last four years and eavesdropping on, and I quote the report, "large volumes of telephone calls, e-mail messages, and other Internet traffic inside the United States." The New York Times reported that the President decided to launch this massive eavesdropping program "without search warrants or any new laws that would permit domestic intelligence collection."

During the period when this eavesdropping was still secret, the President seemed to go out of his way to reassure the American people on more than one occasion that, of course, judicial permission is required for any government spying on American citizens and that, of course, these constitutional safeguards were still in place.

But surprisingly, the President's soothing statements turned out to be false. Moreover, as soon as this massive domestic spying program was uncovered by the press, the President not only confirmed that the story was true, but in the next breath declared that he has no intention stopping or of bringing these wholesale invasions of privacy to an end.

At present, we still have much to learn about the NSA's domestic surveillance. What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the President of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and insistently.

A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government. Our Founding Fathers were adamant that they had established a government of laws and not men. They recognized that the structure of government they had enshrined in our Constitution - our system of checks and balances - was designed with a central purpose of ensuring that it would govern through the rule of law. As John Adams said: "The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them, to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men."

An executive who arrogates to himself the power to ignore the legitimate legislative directives of the Congress or to act free of the check of the judiciary becomes the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free. In the words of James Madison, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."

Thomas Paine, whose pamphlet, "On Common Sense" ignited the American Revolution, succinctly described America's alternative. Here, he said, we intended to make certain that, in his phrase, "the law is king."

Vigilant adherence to the rule of law actually strengthens our democracy, of course, and strengthens America. It ensures that those who govern us operate within our constitutional structure, which means that our democratic institutions play their indispensable role in shaping policy and determining the direction of our nation. It means that the people of this nation ultimately determine its course and not executive officials operating in secret without constraint, under the rule of law.

And make no mistake, the rule of law makes us stronger by ensuring that decisions will be tested, studied, reviewed, and examined through the normal processes of government that are designed to improve policy, and avoid error. And the knowledge that they will be reviewed prevents over-reaching and checks the accretion to power.

A commitment to openness, truthfulness, and accountability helps our country avoid many serious mistakes, that we would otherwise make. Recently, for example, we learned from just declassified documents, after almost forty years, that the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized the tragic Vietnam war, was actually based on false information. And we now know that the decision by Congress to authorize the Iraq War, 38 years later, was also based on false information. Now the point is that America would have been better off knowing the truth and avoiding both of these colossal mistakes in our history. And that is the reason why following the rule of law makes us safer, not more vulnerable.

The President and I agree on one thing. The threat from terrorism is all too real. There is simply no question that we continue to face new challenges in the wake of the attack on September 11th and that we must be ever-vigilant in protecting our citizens from harm.

Where we disagree is on the proposition that we have to break the law or sacrifice our system of government in order to protect Americans from terrorism. When in fact, doing so would make us weaker and more vulnerable.

And remember that once violated, the rule of law is itself in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its mistakes and reveal errors, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police its activities. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws.

The President's men have minced words about America's laws. The Attorney General, for example, openly conceded that the "kind of surveillance" we now know they have been conducting does require a court order unless authorized by statute. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act self-evidently does not authorize what the NSA has been doing, and no one inside or outside the Administration claims that it does. Incredibly, the Administration claims, instead, that the surveillance was implicitly authorized when Congress voted to use force against those who attacked us on September 11th.

But, this argument simply does not hold any water. Without getting into the legal intricacies, it faces a number of embarrassing facts. First, another admission by the Attorney General: he concedes that the Administration knew that the NSA project was prohibited by existing law and that is why they consulted with some members of Congress about the possibility of changing the statute. Genl. Gonzalez says that they were told by the members of congress consulted that this would probably not be possible. And so they decided not to make the request. So how can they now argue that the Authorization for the use of military force somehow implicitly authorized it all along? Indeed, when the Authorization was being debated, the Administration did in fact seek to have language inserted in it that would have authorized them to use military force domestically - and the Congress refused to agree. Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Jim McGovern, among others, made clear statements during the debate on the floor of the house and the senate, respectively, clearly stating that that Authorization did not operate domestically. And there is no assertion to the contrary.

When President Bush failed to convince Congress to give him the power he wanted when this measure was passed, he secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother. But as Justice Frankfurter once wrote: "To find authority so explicitly withheld is not merely to disregard in a particular instance the clear will of Congress. It is to disrespect the whole legislative process and the constitutional division of authority between the President and the Congress."

This is precisely the "disrespect" for the law that the Supreme Court struck down in the steel seizure case during the Korean War.

It is this same disrespect for America's Constitution which has now brought our republic to the brink of a dangerous breach in the fabric of the Constitution. And the disrespect embodied in these apparent mass violations of the law is part of a larger pattern of seeming indifference to the Constitution that is deeply troubling to millions of Americans in both political parties.

For example, as you know the President has also declared that he has a heretofore unrecognized inherent power to seize and imprison any American citizen that he alone determines to be a threat to our nation, and that, notwithstanding his American citizenship, that person imprisoned has no right to talk with a lawyer-even if he wants to argue that the President or his appointees have made a mistake and imprisoned the wrong person. The President claims that he can imprison that American citizen -- any American Citizen he chooses -- indefinitely for the rest of his live without an even arrest warrant, without notifying them about what charges have been filed against them, without even informing their families that they have been imprisoned. No such right exists in the America that you and I know and love. It is foreign to our constitution. It must be rejected.

At the same time, the Executive branch has also claimed a previously unrecognized authority to mistreat prisoners in its custody in ways that plainly constitute torture and have plainly constituted torture in a widespread pattern that has been extensively documented in U.S. facilities located in several countries around the world.

Over 100 of these captives have reportedly died while being tortured by Executive branch interrogators and many more have been broken and humiliated. And, in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, investigators who documented the pattern of torture estimated that more than 90 percent of the victims were completely innocent of any criminal charges whatsoever. This is a shameful exercise of power that overturns a set of principles that our nation has observed since General George Washington first enunciated them during our Revolutionary War. They have been observed by every president since then - until now. They violate the Geneva Conventions and the International Convention Against Torture, and our own laws against torture.

The President has also claimed that he has the authority to kidnap individuals on the streets of foreign cities and deliver them for imprisonment and interrogation on our behalf by autocratic regimes in nations that are infamous for the cruelty of their techniques for torture. Some of our traditional allies have been deeply shocked by these new, and uncharacteristic patterns on the part of Americans. The British Ambassador to Uzbekistan - one of those nations with the worst reputations for torture in its prisons - registered a complaint to his home office about the cruelty and senselessness of the new U.S. practice that he witnessed: "This material we’re getting is useless,” he wrote and then he continued with this – “we are selling our souls for dross. It is in fact positively harmful."

Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is "yes" then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? If the President has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do?

The Dean of Yale Law School, Harold Koh, said after analyzing the Executive Branch's extravagant claims of these previously unrecognized powers: "If the President has commander-in-chief power to commit torture, he has the power to commit genocide, to sanction slavery, to promote apartheid, to license summary execution."

The fact that our normal American safeguards have thus far failed to contain this unprecedented expansion of executive power is, itself, deeply troubling. This failure is due in part to the fact that the Executive Branch has followed a determined strategy of obfuscating, delaying, withholding information, appearing to yield but then refusing to do so and dissembling in order to frustrate the efforts of the legislative and judicial branches to restore a healthy constitutional balance.

For example, after appearing to support legislation sponsored by John McCain to stop the continuation of torture, the President declared in the act of signing the bill that he reserved the right not to comply with it. Similarly, the Executive Branch claimed that it could unilaterally imprison American citizens without giving them access to review by any tribunal. And when the Supreme Court disagreed, the President engaged in legal maneuvers designed to prevent the Court from providing any meaningful content to the rights of the citizens affected.

A conservative jurist on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the Executive branch's handling of one such case seemed to involve the sudden abandonment of principle, and I quote him, "at substantial cost to the government's credibility before the courts."

As a result of this unprecedented claim of new unilateral power, the Executive branch has now put our constitutional design at grave risk. The stakes for America's democracy are far higher than has been generally recognized.

These claims must be rejected and a healthy balance of power restored to our Republic. Otherwise, the fundamental nature of our democracy may well undergo a radical transformation.

For more than two centuries, America's freedoms have been preserved in large part by our founders' wise decision to separate the aggregate power of our government into three co-equal branches, each of which, as you know, serves to check and balance the power of the other two.

On more than a few occasions, in our history, the dynamic interaction among all three branches has resulted in collisions and temporary impasses that create what are invariably labeled "constitutional crises." These crises have often been dangerous and uncertain times for our Republic. But in each such case so far, we have found a resolution of the crisis by renewing our common agreement to live together under the rule of law.

The principle alternative to democracy throughout history has, of course, been the consolidation of virtually all state power in the hands of a single strongman or small group who exercise that power without the informed consent of the governed.

It was in revolt against just such a regime, after all, that America was founded. When Lincoln declared at the time of our greatest crisis that the ultimate question being decided in the Civil War was, in his memorable phrase, "whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure," he was not only saving our union, he was recognizing the fact that democracies are rare in history. And when they fail, as did Athens and the Roman Republic upon whose designs our founders drew heavily, what emerges in their place is another strongman regime.

There have of course been other periods in American history when the Executive Branch claimed new powers later seen as excessive and mistaken. Our second president, John Adams, passed the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts and sought to silence and imprison critics and political opponents. And when his successor, President Thomas Jefferson, eliminated the abuses, in his first inaugural he said: "[The essential principles of our Government] form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation... [S]hould we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety."

President Lincoln, of course, suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War. Some of the worst abuses prior to those of the current administration were committed by President Wilson during and after WWI with the notorious Red Scare and Palmer Raids. The internment of Japanese Americans during WWII marked a shameful low point for the respect of individual rights at the hands of the executive. And, of course, during the Vietnam War, the notorious COINTELPRO program was part and parcel of those abuses experienced by Dr. King and so many thousands of others.

But in each of these cases throughout American history, when the conflict and turmoil subsided, our nation recovered its equilibrium and absorbed the lessons learned in a recurring cycle of excess and regret.

But, there are reasons for concern this time around, that conditions may be changing and that the cycle may not repeat itself. For one thing, we have for decades been witnessing the slow and steady accumulation of presidential power. In a globe where there are nuclear weapons and cold war tensions, Congress and the American people accepted ever enlarging spheres of presidential initiative to conduct intelligence and counter- intelligence activities and to allocate our military forces on the global stage. When military force has been used as an instrument of foreign policy or in response to humanitarian demands, it has almost always been as the result of presidential initiative and leadership. But, as Justice Frankfurter wrote in that famous Steel Seizure Case, "The accretion of dangerous power does not come in a day. It does come, however slowly, from the generative force of unchecked disregard of the restrictions that fence in even the most disinterested assertion of authority."

A second reason to that believe we may be experiencing something new -- outside that historical cycle -- is that we are, after all, told by this Administration that the war footing upon which he has tried to place the country is going to "last” in their phrase, “for the rest of our lives." And so, we are told that the conditions of national threat that have been used by other Presidents to justify arrogations of power will, in this case, persist in near perpetuity.

Third, we need to be keenly aware of the startling advances in the sophistication of eavesdropping and surveillance technologies with their capacity to easily sweep up and analyze enormous quantities of information and then mine it for intelligence. And this adds significant vulnerability to the privacy and freedom of enormous numbers of innocent people at the same time as the potential power of those technologies grows. Those technologies do have the potential for shifting the balance of power between the apparatus of the state and the freedom of the individual in ways that are both subtle and profound.

Don't misunderstand me: the threat of additional terror strikes is real and the concerted efforts by terrorists to acquire weapons of mass destruction does indeed create a real imperative to exercise the powers of the Executive Branch with swiftness and agility. Moreover, there is in fact an inherent power conferred by the Constitution to the any President to take unilateral action when necessary to protect the nation from a sudden and immediate threat. And it is simply not possible to precisely define in legalistic terms exactly when that power is appropriate and when it is not. But the existence of that inherent power cannot be used to justify a gross and excessive power grab lasting for many years and producing a serious imbalance in the relationship between the executive and the other two branches of government.

And there is a final reason to worry that we may be experiencing something more than just another cycle. This Administration has come to power in the thrall of a legal theory that aims to convince us that this excessive concentration of presidential power is exactly what our Constitution intended.

This legal theory, which its proponents call the theory of the unitary executive but which ought to be more accurately described as the unilateral executive, threatens to expand the president's powers until the contours of the constitution that the Framers actually gave us become obliterated beyond all recognition. Under this theory, the President's authority when acting as Commander-in-Chief or when making foreign policy cannot be reviewed by the judiciary, cannot be checked by Congress. And President Bush has pushed the implications of this idea to its maximum by continually stressing his role as Commander-in-Chief, invoking it has frequently as he can, conflating it with his other roles, both domestic and foreign. And when added to the idea that we have entered a perpetual state of war, the implications of this theory stretch quite literally as far into the future as we can imagine.

This effort to rework America's carefully balanced constitutional design into a lopsided structure dominated by an all powerful Executive Branch with a subservient Congress and subservient judiciary is ironically accompanied by an effort by the same administration to rework America's foreign policy from one that is based primarily on U.S. moral authority into one that is based on a misguided and self-defeating effort to establish a form of dominance in the world.

And the common denominator seems to be based on an instinct to intimidate and control.

This same pattern has characterized the effort to silence dissenting views within the Executive branch, to censor information that may be inconsistent with its stated ideological goals, and to demand conformity from all Executive branch employees.

For example, CIA analysts who strongly disagreed with the White House assertion that Osama bin Laden was linked to Saddam Hussein found themselves under pressure at work and became fearful of losing promotions and salary increases.

Ironically, that is exactly what happened to the FBI officials in the 1960s who disagreed with J. Edgar Hoover's assertion that Martin Luther King was closely connected to Communists. The head of the FBI's domestic intelligence division testified that his effort to tell the truth about King's innocence of the charge resulted in he and his colleagues becoming isolated within the FBI and pressured. And I quote: "It was evident that we had to change our ways or we would all be out on the street.... The men and I (he continued) discussed how to get out of trouble. To be in trouble with Mr. Hoover was a serious matter. These men (he continued) were trying to buy homes, mortgages on homes, children in school. They lived in fear of getting transferred, losing money on their homes, as they usually did. ... so they wanted another memorandum written to get us out of the trouble that we were in."

The Constitution's framers who studied human nature so closely understood this dilemma quite well. As Alexander Hamilton put it, "a power over a man's support is a power over his will." (Federalist No. 73)

In any case, quite soon, there was no more difference of opinion within the FBI. And the false accusation became the unanimous view. In exactly the same way, George Tenet's CIA eventually joined in endorsing a manifestly false view that there was a linkage between al Qaeda and the government of Iraq.

In the words of George Orwell: "We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that, sooner or later, a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." 2,200 American soldiers have lost their lives as this false belief bumped into a solid reality.

And indeed, whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable it almost inevitably leads to gross mistakes and abuses. That is part of human nature. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded. It is human nature -- whether for Republicans or Democrats or people of any set of views.

Last week, for example, Vice President Cheney attempted to defend the Administration's eavesdropping on American citizens by saying that if it had conducted this program prior to 9/11, they would have found out the names of some of the hijackers.

Tragically, he apparently still does not know that the Administration did in fact have the names of at least 2 of the hijackers well before 9/11 and had available to them information that could have led to the identification of most of the others. One of them was in the phonebook. And yet, because of incompetence, unaccountable incompetence in the handling of this information, it was never used to protect the American people.

It is often the case, again, regardless of which party might be in power, that an Executive branch, beguiled by the pursuit of unchecked power, responds to its own mistakes by reflexively proposing that it be given still more power. Often, the request itself it used to mask accountability for mistakes in the use of power it already has.

Moreover, if the pattern of practice begun by this Administration is not challenged, it may well become a permanent part of the American system. That’s why many conservatives have pointed out that granting unchecked power to this President means that the next will have unchecked power as well. And the next President may be someone whose values and belief you do not trust. And that is why Republicans as well as Democrats should be concerned with what this President has done. If his attempt to dramatically expand executive power goes unquestioned, then our constitutional design of checks and balances will be lost. And the next President or some future President will be able, in the name of national security, to restrict our liberties in a way the framers never would have imagined possible.

This same instinct to expand its power and to establish dominance has characterized the relationship between this Administration and the courts and the Congress.

In a properly functioning system, the Judicial branch would serve as the constitutional umpire to ensure that the branches of government observed their proper spheres of authority, observed civil liberties, adhered to the rule of law. Unfortunately, the unilateral executive has tried hard to thwart the ability of the judiciary to call balls and strikes by keeping controversies out of its hands - notably those challenging its ability to detain individuals without legal process -- by appointing judges who will be deferential to its exercise of power and by its support of assaults on the independence of the third branch.

The President's decision, for example, to ignore the FISA law was a direct assault on the power of the judges who sit on that court. Congress established the FISA court precisely to be a check on executive power to wiretap. And yet, to ensure that the court could not function as a check on executive power, the President simply did not take matters to it and did not even let the court know that it was being bypassed.

The President's judicial appointments are clearly designed to ensure the courts will not serve as an effective check on executive power. As we have all learned, Judge Alito is a longtime supporter of a powerful executive - a supporter of that so-called unitary executive. Whether you support his confirmation or not - and I respect the fact that some of the co-sponsors of this event do. I do not – but whatever your view, we must all agree that he will not vote as an effective check on the expansion of executive power. Likewise, Chief Justice Roberts has made plain his deference to the expansion of executive power through his support of judicial deference to executive agency rulemaking.

And the Administration has also supported the assault on judicial independence that has been conducted largely in Congress. That assault includes a threat by the Republican majority in the Senate to permanently change the rules to eliminate the right of the minority to engage in extended debate of the President's nominees. The assault has extended to legislative efforts to curtail the jurisdiction of courts in matters ranging from habeas corpus to the pledge of allegiance. In short, the Administration has demonstrated a contempt for the judicial role and sought to evade judicial review of its actions at every turn.

But the most serious damage in our constitutional framework has been done to the legislative branch. The sharp decline of congressional power and autonomy in recent years has been almost as shocking as the efforts by the Executive to attain this massive expansion of its power.

I was elected to the Congress in 1976, served eight years in the house, 8 years in the Senate, presided over the Senate for 8 years as Vice President. As a young man, I saw the Congress first hand as the son of a Senator. My father was elected to Congress in 1938, 10 years before I was born, and left the Senate after I had graduated from college.

The Congress we have today is structurally unrecognizable compared to the one in which my father served. There are many distinguished and outstanding Senators and Congressmen serving today. I am honored to know them and to have worked with them. But the legislative branch of government, as a whole, under its current leadership now operates as if it were entirely subservient to the Executive branch. It is astonishing to me, and so foreign to what the Congress is supposed to be.

Moreover, too many members of the House and Senate now feel compelled to spend a majority of their time not in thoughtful debate on the issues, but instead raising money to purchase 30 second TV commercials.

Moreover, there have now been two or three generations of congressmen who don't really know what an oversight hearing is. In the 70's and 80's, the oversight hearings in which my colleagues and I participated held the feet of the Executive branch to the fire - no matter which party was in power. Yet oversight is almost unknown in the Congress today.

The role of the authorization committees has declined into insignificance. The 13 annual appropriation bills are hardly ever actually passed as bills, anymore. Everything is lumped into a familiar single giant measure that is not even available for members of Congress to read before they vote on it. Members of the minority party are now routinely excluded from conference committees, and amendments are routinely disallowed during floor consideration of legislation.

In the United States Senate, which used to pride itself on being the "greatest deliberative body in the world," meaningful debate is now a rarity. Even on the eve of the fateful vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq, Senator Robert Byrd famously asked: "Why is this chamber empty?" In the House of Representatives, the number who face a genuinely competitive election contest every two years is typically less than a dozen out of 435.

And too many incumbents have come to believe that the key to continued access to the money for re-election is to stay on the good side of those who have the money to give; and, in the case of the majority party, the whole process is largely controlled by the incumbent president and his political organization.

So the willingness of Congress to challenge the Executive branch is further limited when the same party controls both Congress and the Administration. The Executive branch, time and again, has co-opted Congress' role, and too often Congress has been a willing accomplice in the surrender of its own power.

Look for example at the Congressional role in "overseeing" this massive four year eavesdropping campaign that on its face seemed so clearly to violate the Bill of Rights. The President says he informed Congress, but what he really means is that he talked with the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees and sometimes the leaders of the House and Senate. This small group, in turn, claimed they were not given the full facts, though at least one of the committee leaders handwrote a letter of concern to the vice-president.

Though I sympathize with the awkward position in which these men and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress must share the blame for not taking sufficient action to protest and seek to prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program. Many did.

Moreover, in the Congress as a whole-both House and Senate-the enhanced role of money in the re-election process, coupled with the sharply diminished role for reasoned deliberation and debate, has produced an atmosphere conducive to pervasive institutionalized corruption that some have fallen vulnerable to.

The Abramoff scandal is but the tip of a giant iceberg threatening the integrity of the entire legislative branch of government.

It is the pitiful state of our legislative branch which primarily explains the failure of our vaunted checks and balances to prevent the dangerous overreach by the Executive Branch now threatening a radical transformation of the American system.

I call upon Democratic and Republican members of Congress today to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government you are supposed to be under the Constitution of our country. But there is yet another Constitutional player whose pulse must also be taken and whose role must be examined in order to understand the dangerous imbalance that has accompanied these efforts by the Executive branch to dominate our constitutional system.

We the people are-collectively-still the key to the survival of America's democracy. We-must examine ourselves. We - as Lincoln put it, "[e]ven we here"-must examine our own role as citizens in allowing and not preventing the shocking decay and hollowing out and degradation of American democracy! It is time to stand up for the American system that we know and love! It is time to breathe new life back into America’s democracy!

Thomas Jefferson said: "An informed citizenry is the only true repository of the public will" America’s based on the belief that we can govern ourselves. And exercise the power of self-government. The American idea proceeded from the bedrock principle that all just power is derived from the consent of the governed.

The intricate and carefully balanced constitutional system that is now in such danger was created with the full and widespread participation of the population as a whole. The Federalist Papers were, back in the day, widely-read newspaper essays, and they represented only one of twenty-four series of essays that crowded the vibrant marketplace of ideas in which farmers and shopkeepers recapitulated the debates that played out so fruitfully in Philadelphia.

And when the Convention had done its best, it was the people - in their various States - that refused to confirm the result until, at their insistence, the Bill of Rights was made integral to the document sent forward for ratification.

And it is "We the people" who must now find, once again, the ability we once had to play an integral role in saving our Constitution. And here there is cause for both concern and for great hope. The age of printed pamphlets and political essays has long since been replaced by television - a distracting and absorbing medium which sees determined to entertain and sell more than it informs and educates.

Lincoln's memorable call during the Civil War is now applicable in a new way to our dilemma today: "We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

Forty years have passed since the majority of Americans adopted television as their principal source of information. And its dominance has now become so extensive that virtually all significant political communication now takes place within the confines of flickering 30-second television advertisements, and they’re not the Federalist Papers.

The political economy supported by these short but expensive television ads is as different from the vibrant politics of America's first century as those politics were different from the feudalism which thrived on the ignorance of the masses of people in the Dark Ages.

The constricted role of ideas in the American political system today has encouraged efforts by the Executive branch to believe it can and should control the flow of information as a means of controlling the outcome of important decisions that still lie in the hands of the people.

The Administration vigorously asserts its power to maintain secrecy in its operations. After all, if the other branches don’t know what is happening they can't be a check or a balance.

For example, when the Administration was attempting to persuade Congress to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit, many in the House and Senate raised concerns about the cost and design of the program. But, rather than engaging in open debate on the basis of factual data, the Administration withheld facts and actively prevented the Congress from hearing testimony that it had sought from the principal administration expert who had the information showing in advance of the vote that, indeed, the true cost estimates were far beyond the numbers given to Congress by the President. And the workings of the program would play out very differently than Congress had been told.

Deprived of that information, and believing the false numbers given to it instead, the Congress approved the program. And tragically, the entire initiative is now collapsing- all over the country- with the Administration making an appeal just this weekend to major insurance companies to volunteer to bail it out. But the American people, who have the right to believe that its elected representatives will learn the truth and act on the basis of knowledge and utilize the rule of reason, have been let down.

To take another example, scientific warnings about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked global warming were censored by a political appointee in the White House who had no scientific training, whatsoever. Today, one of the leading scientific experts in the world on global warming in NASA, has been ordered not to talk to members of the press, ordered to keep a careful log of everyone he meets with so that the Executive branch can monitor and control what he shares of his knowledge of global warming. This is a planetary crisis – we owe ourselves a truthful and reasoned discussion.

One of the other ways the Administration has tried to control the flow of information has been by consistently resorting to the language and politics of fear in order to short-circuit the debate and drive its agenda forward without regard to the evidence or the public interest. President Eisenhower said this: "Any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America."

Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: "Men feared witches and burnt women."

The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the full Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of nuclear missiles ready to be launched on a moment’s notice to completely annihilate the country? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when the last generation had to fight and win two World Wars simultaneously?

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they did. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it’s up to us to do the very same thing!

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, and I quote: "The President has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the Attorney General to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the President. We’ve had a fresh demonstration of how an independent investigation by a special counsel with integrity can rebuild confidence in our system of justice. Patrick Fitzgerald has, by all accounts, shown neither fear nor favor in pursuing allegations that the Executive branch has violated other laws.

Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress should support the bipartisan call of the Liberty Coalition for the appointment of this special counsel to pursue the criminal issues raised by the warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the President, and it should be a political issue in any race -- regardless of party, section of the country, house of congress for anyone who opposes the appointment of a special counsel under these dangerous circumstances when our Constitution is at risk. Secondly, new whistleblower protections should immediately be established for members of the Executive branch who report evidence of wrongdoing -- especially where it involves the abuse of authority in these sensitive areas of national security.

Third, both Houses of Congress should, of course, hold comprehensive-and not just superficial-hearings into these serious allegations of criminal behavior on the part of the President. And, they should follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Fourth, the extensive new powers requested by the Executive branch in its proposal to extend and enlarge the Patriot Act should, under no circumstances be granted, unless and until there are adequate and enforceable safeguards to protect the Constitution and the rights of the American people against the kinds of abuses that have so recently been revealed.

Fifth, any telecommunications company that has provided the government with access to private information concerning the communications of Americans without a proper warrant should immediately cease and desist their complicity in this apparently illegal invasion of the privacy of American citizens.

Freedom of communication is an essential prerequisite for the restoration of the health of our democracy.

It is particularly important that the freedom of the Internet be protected against either the encroachment of government or efforts at control by large media conglomerates. The future of our democracy depends on it.

In closing, I mentioned that along with cause for concern, there is reason for hope. As I stand here today, I am filled with optimism that America is on the eve of a golden age in which the vitality of our democracy will be re-established by the people and will flourish more vibrantly than ever. Indeed I can feel it in this hall.

As Dr. King once said, "Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

Thank you, very much.

Of Snakes and Butterflies

A few days ago, celebrating another one of our 50-something birthdays, a group of us were sitting in a friend’s kitchen drinking wine, when Cat said:

“OK girls, look at my face, I’m not sure if you can see the results yet or not, but I’m exfoliating.”

Despite her name, Cat is not feline-like in any way. After surviving and recovering from not only a bout with a cancerous ovarian tumor, and the botched surgery, and less than nurturing recovery care; but also a humiliating incident of sexual harassment from her employer, this military wife, and mother of two boys, cut her hair, went from dishwater to platinum blonde, left her secretarial job, got her real estate license and the former Catherine Louise, christened herself forever after: Cat. She reinvented herself and she is fabulous!

Cat is, most succinctly put, the CATalyst in our group of seven friends. She starts sentences with “OK girls, were going to talk about…” or “I have a story we need to discuss…” She’s even been known to bring 7 copies of an agenda with bulleted topics of discussion to the table where we’ve gathered for cocktails.

I admire this woman for what she’s accomplished, and how she handles the bumps in her life. Also, as a writer, I’m fascinated by the character that is Cat. As I wallow and whine in the throes of my hormonal premenopausal roller coaster, I find myself channeling her changeling spirit.

Menopause, or The Change, after all, is pretty much your body reinventing itself from perky, energetic, child bearer to solid, steady, wisdom bearer – or at least stereotypically, that’s how it goes. But being a woman (and a writer) and needing to talk about things, and share my feelings, good, bad, awful, dreadful, hot, cold… I probably have over dramatized this natural process. We see it in nature all the time – when it grows too large, a snake simply sheds its skin. A caterpillar, preferring privacy, undergoes metamorphosis in private, full-body, custom couture.

I have learned quite a bit from my ‘sistahood.’ They have literally changed my life, and without going too far out on a limb, I can honestly say that I have changed theirs too. Whether for good or for bad, change is hard and change is exciting, but more importantly change simply is. While my ‘change’ will not be as outwardly noticeable as literally shedding skin or emerging from a cocoon, like a snake, or a butterfly – or like Cat – it will be good – eventually.

OK girls, look at me, I’m not sure if you can see the results yet or not, but I’m changing.

No More Ms. Polite Guy!

There comes a time in some lives where you must step back and reassess what you think you are – or thought you were – and readjust your inner compass, so to speak.

For the longest time, I assumed I was a less than positive influence on my family due to what I had always thought of as a rebellious childhood. As I mentioned in the Thursday 13 below, I grew up in California, in the 70s. To clarify, let’s just say I wasn’t a stranger to the sex, drugs and rock and roll scene…OK? I shunned the more conformist people – thought myself cooler, more superior than them. Then, fate made me lie in the bed I had made, but just when I thought I was destined to become another trailer trash victim of my bad marriages and lifestyle, along came practically perfect Downtown Dad! In an effort to shorten the telling of the fairy tale romantic comedy/melodrama that ensued… suffice it to say that we swept each other off our collective feet and have managed to live relatively happily ever after. I felt at the time that I was the girl from the wrong side of the tracks faction marrying into this Cleaver-esque family. Here he was, the only one of five siblings ever to have divorced and then to be marrying ME, a now twice divorced single mom, well – what ever would this family have to endure as a result of my influence?

Well, I finally figured out that I was way off base in my perceptions of his family as well as what they would think of me. Turns out we were all closer to normal than I had originally thought. Over time, a couple of his other siblings have now divorced, and a couple who should have divorced didn’t. So here’s me, the disillusioned preacher’s kid, who likes her liquor - alot, and makes no bones about speaking her mind, the girl most likely to NOT succeed – still married after 18 years to the one kid in the family who almost went to seminary school, who thought heavy drinking was packing away two beers, who is one of the 14 people of his age group to have never tried any – ANY drugs, and who has and still does make a living as a politician.

One of the things I feared in our marriage was how our kids would turn out. I expected them to follow in my footsteps, which is to say, badly. I assumed they would hate us as parents by about 12 and start drinking or using drugs soon after, and I fully expected my daughter to be pregnant by 14 or 15. As it turns out none of that has happened or is even remotely likely. How did I luck out?!

Which brings me to the point of this post.

Downtown Dad has a younger brother Rick. Rick fell in love with a girl and subsequently married her along about the same time as Downtown Dad and I got hitched. Rick’s wife, Michelle, always struck me as a bit of a floozie, but considering my own self-perception, I never really made any mention of it. So, time went on. Owing to the fact that we lived several states apart, Rick, Michelle, Downtown Dad, and I never really were close socially, although we did talk on the phone some. Amazingly, when I finally got pregnant, so did Michelle! Sadly, I miscarried, but practically on the same day, so did Michelle! After that trauma, we both managed to get pregnant again and lo and behold, both babies were due at the end of July!

Since Downtown Dad’s mother had previously only been blessed with grand SONS, she made it quite clear that if one of these babies was a girl, that girl would certainly be the PRINCESS of that generation! This set in motion the friendly competition to see who could have a girl and have it first!

Well, on July 28th at 12:10 a.m. I gave birth to Tessie Wee – actually about a week early, but nevertheless, the clear winner in the grandprincess race. Two weeks later, Michelle had Alexis, another grandprincess, but not the first! I must give credit to our families, because as much build up as I’ve given this, no favoritism has ever been shown for one girl over the other. In fact, at family reunions or significant gatherings both girls became fast friends as well as the twin apples of their grandparents’ eyes. Photos and home videos reveal not only their closeness in age, but also their physical similarity. White blonde hair, impish good looks, and an overabundance of personality.

It was a shock then this past summer, after a 6 or 8 year lapse in visits, to arrive at grandma and grandpa’s to see the now 13-year-old Alex looking very much like Paris Hilton. Too skinny, too cocky, and too old for her years. Tessie, on the other hand, having recently blossomed into a voluptuous, if not pimpled and gangly preteen, felt quite overshadowed. As Alex and her overbearing and just as unnaturally thin mother would flit about the house, lamenting the lack of a nearby Starbucks, and smelling suspiciously, of cigarette smoke, there were many stifled comments and surreptitiously rolled eyes. A red flag that was sadly, in the patiently polite, Midwestern way, overlooked.

Turns out, we should have said or done something. We just heard last night that Alex has been using Meth, and her mother has either known or if she didn’t know, has been enabling the behavior that we saw starting last year and that has now escalated into a life threatening addiction! Rick is just devastated and has just now shared this with the family after having dealt with it since before Christmas.

How did this happen? How in a family does this kind of thing start to grow, and how do you not see it? It begs the old nature vs. nurture question. How could these two girls, so alike in so many ways from the start, with parents not all that different from one another, wind up on such different paths?

I thank whatever it is, the powers that be, our parental wisdom, or just plain luck that it’s not my daughter in that situation. I also am fighting a nagging feeling of superiority. Where did we go right, where they went wrong? Was my subculture background a factor in recognizing trouble and steering our kids a different way? Did Downtown Dad’s boy-scout-ish-ness act as a role model for our kids to make good choices? Sure, there are a lot of factors involved, and this kind of thing does not crop up overnight, but considering the fact that we are all products of our own best thinking… what kind of thinking could EVER rationalize using METH?!?

So, I guess I wasn’t the bad influence I thought I was after all. I just hope it’s not too late to save the ones who were – and their victims.

2006 Kickoff and Awards Dinner

Last night was the first Gala Event of the year for the company I work for, where we as Realtors get to pat ourselves and each other on the back and clap and clap and clap for each and every award. Then, at the end, the Rookies, those who have not been with the company for a year yet, put on a skit. The rules for the skit, don't insult any one person. Well, how funny can you be if you don't employ sarcasm? Lesson learned, not very. This year, we groaned inwardly as we laughed politely at the oldest camp skit ever... "Bring me the important papers!" All manner of 'important papers' were brought forth, until inevitably the last person brought.... you guessed it, the toilet paper.

I decided to embrace my hatred of "awards" functions by bringing along my Kodak Easy Share (which, by the way, I won at the same heinious awards function last year) and by snapping pictures of the dorky madness. Unfortunately (or thankfully) missing from this pictoral revue are any pictures of the skit, and any pictures of the 'grip and grin' awards presentation.

Herein are my peers who share my "love" of this tradition and have done their best to convey those feelings.










Above are Greg, Blee, Lanpher and Cat all duded and gussied up for our quarterly picture as well as for this here shindig we all love.





At the right, we see Matt trying to charm the bored-to-tears Robbie. Our Matty won Rookie of the Year and we got a chance to cheer and whistle and whoop for real!




What are the chances of three people wearing the same shirt in three different colors? Julie in black, Cat in red and Robbie in periwinkle. According to them, it was quite unintentional.

Conversation overheard between one of the more pinched and unhappy people we work with (not pictured) and Cat (in red):

"Did you work out your outfits ahead of time?"

"No, I guess we've just been friends too long, we must think alike."

"Looks like you need to get some new friends"

"OK, well I was just about to call you to see if you were free to get together next week..."

"Good choice, because I'd NEVER wear anything like that!"



A quick game of charades in between speeches helped to break up the monotony. Actually I'm not quite sure what Kim is trying to convey to Terry, Shawn and Cat, but apparently it's quite entertaining.



Meanwhile, arrogant women who use their maiden names to "ride on the coattails of a legacy" should probably not wear spaghetti straps which highlight their flabby upper arms and back fat. Long story... you had to be there.




In an industry where some of us still have to fight the stereotype of old men in plaid jackets selling houses like they were used cars, the idea of an awards dinner just rubs some of us the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, I'll take the bonuses and the plaques and recognition, but rewarding people solely for the dollar amount they brought in and not for how satisfied or dissatisfied the PEOPLE involved may have been, to me just seems wrong. I know, it's sales and you have to motivate sales people like that, but this is my forum and I can say what I want. So there.

13 Things About Me (meme)

Thirteen Things about Linda (or Margeaux) 1. Even though I really love this blogging thing, I pretty much don't have time for it. 2. Even though I don't have time for this blogging thing, I do it anyway! 3. I was born and raised in Southern California and after (yipes) 30 years of living everywhere but there, I still miss it. Not the lifestyle so much, but the sea, and the sierra madres, and the red tile roofs, and the palm trees.... 4. I have lived in the midwest and upper midwest for 15 years now and even though it's a wonderful place to raise my children, I will never think of myself as a midwesterner. 5. My dad was a Conservative Southern Baptist Minister, the son of a Conservative Southern Baptist Minister who was also a Missionary in Guam - does that give you a clue to how messed up I am? 6. My mom is a wonderful person who did (and still does) everything in her power to make my childhood and growing up years wonderful. Apparently I'm still in my growing up years. 7. I have three sisters, two of which were my father's from a previous marriage and are more than 18 years my senior, and one of which is 5 years younger. 8. I have been married three times. Once, right out of high school to absolutely the wrong guy for absolutely the wrong reasons. The second time to the father of my oldest son. And the third and final time to my wonderful husband Downtown Dad! 9. Downtown Dad and I met while I was working in the Human Resources office at AAA (Auto club not the non-drinking club). He walked into my office soon after being hired to be the Marketing Director. We were both married to someone else, but fell in love at first sight anyway! 10. Beezer is my first born. He's 24 and probably the most highly educated waiter in three states! I love him dearly, but his college career (which is apparently still not over) has really not kicked open any doors for him - yet. I am starting to hear my grandma biological clock ticking... 11. Tessie is my pink princess daughter. We used to call her a pink tornado, but she's 14 now and even the princess title is wearing a little thin. She got the creative genes and they were all from Downtown Dad's side! She paints, draws, and makes things out of clay. She sings, she dances and hopes to prove she can act later this year. 12. Bearly is a scientist but he's recently discovered his creative side and will start guitar lessons soon. He is definately smarter than the average "bear." At 12 he's got some strong opinions about goals and how he's going to live his life. I think he'll be the one to take care of mom and dad in their old age! 13. I am a Realtor by day... but I love to write. I'd like to think of myself as a writer, but I haven't written anything (to speak of) My friends (and enemies) say that I am a good writer. I just don't know what to write. I was hoping this blog would be some kind of a platform, or incentive, or motivator to write something - anything! Links to other Thursday Thirteens! (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)http://happyfamilyathome.blogspot.com/ http://lazydaisylog.grrrlmeetsworld.com/ http://allisontannery.blogsome.com/ http://snaphappymom.blogspot.com/

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
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I must applaud the chemist

So, OK I'm totally feeling better. More interested in "everything." Not cynical when I smile. I even laughed today, genuinely! I want to know if it's the "Extra Strength" valerian sleepytime tea, or the 6 ibuprofen daily, or the "topical" progesterone.... the world may never know. But, in combination, these three miracles of modern science have combined to make my world a happier place.

I still think that not having two houses, winning a limited lottery (just enough to pay off the bills), and an extreme makeover on me, my family and my house, would just about be the bomb.

Let the medicating begin!

My doctor was also unable to find any multiheaded hydra-like growths on my ultrasound, in fact in our conversation today, she said she frankly found nothing out of the ordinary. Yay.

So now "we" are trying a topical application of progesterone for two weeks.

Topical?

Yeah, you rub it into your wrists.

Wild.

Yeah.

Normal?

Today I really felt connected again. Which tells me this whole thing is hormone related.

No word from my doctor today, which means that I will have to call her tomorrow to beg once more for the hormone laden anything I wanted at my visit two days ago.... OK, I'll calm down, but crap, lets get this done for crap's sake!

I had my usual list of things to do today, but contrary to how I was effected before by calls coming in that threw assunder my well laid plans, this time I was bouyed emotionally by contact with other people. Yeah, I had to practically drag myself out of the house for the 9:00 meeting at a local coffee shop, but it turned out to be non-combative, so I felt good after it was over. I managed to stop by Downtown Dad's office later and then finished up some paperwork at my own office before scampering for shelter at home.

I was only at home for a little while when I started getting return calls on the messages I had left earlier. These messages always make me feel better since I can then schedule things and add items to my "to do" list on my own time.

We had not one but two calls from people interested in our house today. I did not mention the contingent offer on the table, that I will save for a face to face meeting. I also managed to move a closing date, and make contact with another client who wants to store some belongings at a vacant house before closing.

Another call I got today was from a couple who are friends of mine but who are and have been very reluctant to pay the non-negotiable 7% marketing fee that we charge. They have tried to sell their home and the home of their parents - unrepresented. They have tried a cut rate realtor who in effect stuck a sign in the yard and walked away. And now, after two years of showing them houses, and offering them market analyses, and hanging out (because remember - we're friends...) The wife called me this afternoon and asked if there was any way we could negotiate on the heretofore stated unnegotiable marketing fee. ...I will do a market analysis of the two homes they want to sell, and I will present my marketing presentation to them - again - tomorrow. And, again, I will present to them the "you get what you pay for" schpeil.

So, that is my day - aside from the fact that I signed up for Google's Ad Sense program in hopes that I will make some money from this blog experiment, so if you feel inclined, click on one or two of the ads you see displayed here. Thanks. It means a lot to me.

Dissapointed in Normal

How can I be disappointed?

I went in for the ultrasound test, steeled and ready to hear that my innards were overrun by free radical fibroid cysts. Armed with a full bladder consisting of 36+ ounces of recently consumed coffee, water and orange juice, I waited on the table for the technician to gasp in horror seeing the armies of growths I assumed were infesting my ovaries, uterus and whatever other mystical womanly organs reside there. But her even and uninterested tone describing my normal-looking guts in such a clinical manner only served to worry me.

If not armies of hydra-like creatures pressing on my spine, what is causing my back pain? If my uterus is not crammed with corpus luteum cysts, then why the irregular periods? If my hormones are still functioning like they are supposed to, then what the creepin' hell is up with my *&%$#&ing mood swings?

These and other questions remain to be answered. Meanwhile, I slept pretty good last night, this period appears to be over, and my lethargic, meloncholy appears to have lifted.

January 3 later on....

Same Day. More Time.

In all the other blogs I read, the writers chronical something... motherhood, pregnancy, bowel movements. I hereby decide to devote this blog to chronical my ... well, I'm not sure what to call it.... see, I've been fatigued lately.

Tired?

More than that.

Depressed?

Not so much.

Overwhelmed?

Getting closer.

Yet, after having held out for the "natural" alternative for about 6 months now, I finally went to a "regular" doctor to see why I have constant back pain, interminable periods, wild mood swings, and absolutely no interest in anything.

I have this aversion to complaining about things, or asking for help of any kind. Probably stems from my early show of feminism for my parents' benefit - "Don't tell ME I can't do something... I'll show you..." But that's a whole different post.... Anyway, turns out this time that, age, stress, and hormones have finally caught up to me. Which is why I was a little unnerved when I found myself in my female doctor's office, a short two months after my annual physical, during which I defiantly told her that I was certainly NOT interested in Hormone Replacement Therapy, practically begging for a cup of hormone laden anything to chug!

Yes, this past year has been stressful to say the least. Two house payments, (not to mention utilities and insurance) funding and staffing difficulties for Downtown Dad's business, Commission pay for me (need I say more?) Two teenagers... you get the picture. Add to that, the fact that my lower back started to hurt a good share of the time and has progressed to constant pain which I thought was a side effect of what I thought was cramping due to irregular periods, which caused me to wake more and more often during the night, which I tried to rationalize as just more time to write but obviously never used, causing me guilt on that front, and then there's the new puppy who took 6 months to decide to pee outside, immediately after which she went into heat! (fertile females in the house - 3; immature or infertile males in the house 3 - talk about hormonal overload! Again, another post!)

My doctor, wonderful, patient, logical woman she is, asked a few questions, poked and prodded a couple of places and listened and handed me kleenex, and listened, and listened, then scheduled me for an ultrasound. Seems that she concluded from my torrent of tears and my disjointed sad stories that I may be suffering from the effects of uterine fibroid cysts (as well as menopause, sleep deprivation, and stress - but, again, that's another post). This diagnosis in itself is not necessarily comforting, but the fact that there might be something actually causing my discomfort was, well, comforting! Depending on the outcome of this test, I could be looking at anything from antidepressant or hormone therapy to hysterectomy to cancer.

So, my ultrasound test is scheduled for tomorrow at 10 a.m. Before which I must drink 32 ounces of some beverage (they did not specify alcoholic or non alcoholic.... OK another post... ) without peeing until it's over! Yikes.

My fellow female Realtors, all of whom are of my vintage, and older, simply shrugged and said "Do it honey" upon hearing of my impending tests and subsequent surgical and drug options. This is apparently a normal thing and I'm apparently too stubborn, too stupid and way too attached to my hippy past in my denial of the whole situation.

Here then, begins day one of my journey to a pain free, rested, regular, normal life.

Is there such a thing? We shall see.

January 3

The whole point of starting this blog was to force myself to write. And the point of the name was to remind me to be honest - or straight up, while at the same time keeping my own sense of humor - slightly dirty. Obviously every post cannot be witty and socially relevant. I guess I have to think of this as a planting ground for ideas.

I recently got a notebook computer - on the surface, for my Real Estate work, but it did seem like a logical, if not romantic way to use the three hours most nights where I am wide awake and the rest of the house is sound asleep. I could see myself illuminated by the blue glow of the screen, silently putting into words those brilliant thoughts that run in and out of my head in those wee hours. This is not one of those times.

In reality, it's 6:30 a.m. and I wasted the past three hours telling myself that if I just didn't open my eyes, I'd go right back to sleep. If I could just get comfortable, I'd sleep. If I could just.... yeah right. But as Scarlett Ohara said.... 'tomorrow is another day!'

Yeah, whatever...

The one thing I am learning is that I don't have a very strong sense of comittment. But, ever the optimist... since today is the second day we are snowed in and housebound, I am going to catch up on all my writing projects. Well, maybe not all, but some. And no more scary pictures - yecccch! What was I thinking?

Who I AM

As I struggle to keep my focus this afternoon on filing 6 months of bills, and organizing the three-foot-high piles of paperwork, and the stacks and stacks of how-to-write propaganda, I have somehow come to a place where I can actualy start to see the real me. Is it the zen state brought on by three hours of filing? Is it the lack of blood from three hours of sitting on the floor? Is it the Eagles Hotel California Album playing over and over again that evokes snippets of me? Is it all of the above? Yes, yes, and a resounding YES!

In the year 1971 I think, I sat in front of the black and white TV set in the Den/Gramma's bedroom, with my Gramma, and my little sister and watched the Hallmark Presentation of Rogers and Hammersteins Cinderella. As shallow as it sounds now, 35 years later, that movie changed, or rather provided a framework for My Life.

I'm not sure where to start, because I can literally draw a comparison from everything that has happened to me, to my adolescent interpretation of Rogers and Hammerstein's interpretation of the story of Cinderalla as interpreted by the Grimm brothers. So you see how convoluted this is. I will save the whole-life extrapolation for future posts, what I would like to focus on right now is Tessie.

In 1971, when I watched that production, and related my gangly adolescent self to Leslie Anne Warren's portrayal of a pseudo gangly adolescent girl, my psyche grabbed those perky lyrics and cast them in the soundtrack of what became my life. I can't tell you how many times I've pondered one of life's dilemmas and had the lyric to a song from that show pop into my head. I'm embarrassed to confess how many times I've used those lyrics as a deciding factor.

So... fast forward to today - or earlier this week. Tessie and Bearly are both trying out for the Jr. High School Play. This year it is L'il Abner. For these auditions, children must learn a dance and choose a song to sing. For Bearly, who has exceeded at being both class clown and football hero, this is best compared to Chris Penn's performance in Footloose. As for Tessie, this is where I start to see WHO I AM.

Tessie, is, as she hates to admit, me. I, am, as I am kind of lucky to observe, alot like Tessie. In her search for a song to sing for the audition, Tessie chose....yes, the Impossible Song, from the Rogers and Hammerstien production of Cinderella. Her voice was perfect for it, and yes, my nostalgic anchor urged me to push her to choose that. I am totally embarassed to admit how I sweated her 'hour upon the stage.' But as we both high fived each other to celebrate - she made both the dance and singing call backs. Brother Bearly, who would charm the pants off of the audience in some comic role, only made the dance call backs, the announcement of which has slightly dampened his enthusiasm for this play.

So, this evening, as I am dutifully filing, which I liken to sweeping out the chimney, and as Bearly is galloping across the neighborhood countryside on his mighty steed.. er skateboard, and as Tessie is floating about the house singing In My Own Little Corner - I can't help but relate yet another line from that song to my life.... "I can be whatever I want to be."

Even If It's Not Visible

I am feeling an improvement. Especially in the skin on my face, it's smoother, and isn't breaking out as much. Now I'm not sure if it's the internal change of diet and all those antioxidant supplements or the topical application of DMEA and a moisturizer with Vitamin C Ester. But, I'm not the chemist here, I am but the lab rat charting my progress in this experiment.

It's interesting. So many things are changing, but we - our family - is not picking up and moving nor are we doing much of anything drastic. Several times in our lives Downtown Dad and I have felt what we call 'the winds of change' start to blow, and each time that's happened we've made a drastic change - relationship, career, state! This time, it seems as if we just needed to open our eyes and accept the changes, rather than effect them as we have in the past. I'm going to stick with me as the example, but just as an aside, the kids are really happy, they've got good friends and they are both getting good grades in school. The dogs seem happy - aside from Zoey not getting good grades in her potty training - all seems quiet on the canine front. As for Downtown Dad, well, once the stress eases up a bit I think he'll start feeling the effects of a better, healthier diet.

So, about the changes:

We've decided to take the house off the market and rent it out. I took a class last year that had me absolutely itching to buy and investment property and we just couldn't swing it financially. Now here we are with a lovely renovated vacant investment property just sitting in our laps - (smacking my forehead) - Duh!

I've applied for a Part Time position as a Human Resources Assistant, that offers flexible hours. This way I can hang on to my Realtor license in case somebody wants to buy a house from me by accident, and for the landlord tax write offs, and use my free time doing somethign I know, AND get a steady paycheck! (again with the forehead smacking)

I'm also working on negotiating a freelance writing gig in-house where I work. See, Realtors - real ones, not pretend ones like me, send out marketing propaganda - alot. Our company has recently switched to a marketing newsletter that no one likes, but it was thought that if we produced one in-house the costs would be too prohibitive. I've sprinkled hints here and there, and enough people know I can write - plus I've strategically placed myself as chairperson of the Marketing Advisory Committee, where the newsletter problem is being discussed. Long story short - it looks like our company will be producing a 4 page glossy marketing newlsetter monthly and I may be able to propose myself a place as writer! Which, would be another source of steady income, once again doing something I know!

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and sticking to my new healthy eating habits and hoping that each of these new pathways work out! OK, here's the picture. By the way, it will be apparent when I REALLY start to see a difference because I won't bury the picture way down on the post anymore.... :)

Another Day

OK, here's me... call me weird, but I'm seeing an improvement. This picture is considerably less painful than the others. I'm going to catch up all the haps tomorrow. The events are growing and I fear I will fall behind and never be able to remember all the sordid details which are really the best parts! Stay tuned for more on:

• Clients sent to rehab days before closing on a house
• Egotistical client offers low on a new construction home and is not laughed out of the deal!
• Home is lovingly rehabbed and then languishes on the market
• Pity party thrown
• Disney's Electrical Parade soundtrack found to be cure for depression
• Tessie and Bear try out for Middle School play - OH! The Drama!
• A Thirty Year Reunion is planned - A rebellion is afoot!
• Supplemental employment - reality or realty?
• Landlord or Slumlord
• Doggy doors - replace the carpet or replace the door?
• Freelance Newsletters - my key to solvency?

Well, for some reason my network won't let me upload the picture, perhaps a blessing.

**update** Network allowed upload

November 3 and 4

OK, I've been a little preoccupied. Sticking to this healthy diet, and still hanging with my buds who are a constant bad influence on me. I'm strong though - ha ha.

So anyway, here are the two latest photo installments, sadly, they just look like the previous two. I need to keep this up though, as painful as it is to think that anyone else is looking at these.

I don't have a lot to say... which is odd coz there is a whole ton of stuff going on, I just can't focus my ADD mind on any one long enough to write about it.

It occurs to me that if I'd jot down a little bit each night, even if it's not Shakespearean, it would ease up on the pressure to back track and write out the whole back story every time something occurs to me.

OK, now that I've used up enough space to ease the shock of the pictures being the first thing you see when the page loads - here it is.

November 3










November 4

More Who Am I?

OK, going with this theme, I thought I'd also do something that is really scary to me, a picture log of my progress on this eating plan full of promise for a healthier, younger looking me.

Yesterday I weighed 165, looked like hell, and felt very tired at the end of the day. Sleepy tired, with a headache, but not muscle fatigue tired, plus my back didn't really hurt all that much. I stuck to the diet to the letter. Eggs with spinach and fruit, all the vitamins, green tea and water for breakfast. A tomatoey stew with veggies and chicken and cashew butter with a salad dressed with olive oil and lemon juice for lunch, along with the vitamins, green tea and more water. A snack around 3 of celery sticks and guacamole made with edamame, more tea, more water. Dinner was wild caught salmon (canned) with steamed asparagus with olive oil lemon juice and dill drizzled over the top with yes, more green tea and more water and some more vitamins. I skipped the evening snack because I was so tired I went to bed at 8:30.

For a long time I haven't slept through the night due to breathing problems, (snoring) and back pain. Last night, I only woke up once or twice and my back didn't really hurt enough to have to get up and walk around like I usually do. Plus my mouth wasn't really dry so maybe I wasn't snoring.

OK, today, I feel pretty good, I took another picture... I thought I looked better today when I looked in the mirror, but - the camera doesn't lie. Maybe I'm just a lousy photographer... yeah thats it! Anyway here it is, and I can only hope there is some progress tomorrow....

Who Am I?

Oprah asked that question yesterday on her show. Ironically yesterday was the day that Dave and I had chosen to be the last day of our old lives (what ever those were) and today is the start of everything new. We started an eating plan based on Dr. Perricone’s latest book (not a diet) that promises to improve not only our looks but our health both physical and mental. Yesterday was also the day we found out that the people we thought were going to buy our house, are not going to buy our house. It was also Halloween, and sadly probably the last Trick or Treating Halloween for the kids. They started out with a pack of kids, and then either the other kids parents wouldn’t let them go, or some just didn’t want to go. So Tessie and Bear, a pink teenage bunny, and an insane punk clown, trudged woefully home on a relatively warm October evening, and resigned themselves to answering the door and handing out candy. Even sadder, we only had about 5 groups come by. The mall has taken over.

So, yesterday, as I prepared our healthy meals for today, I watched Oprah’s show about why people let themselves go. Again, pretty timely for me. So who am I? This new eating plan, like others, suggests that you take a “before” picture and then take another one after 28 days. OK. So after taking the before picture, one of my answers to the question is: I am absolutely the ugliest woman on the planet. Hopefully this will change. I realize that is not an answer in the spirit of the question, but it does have a bearing on my psyche.

Physicality aside, I honestly do have a pretty positive view of who I am. The person, the soul, that exists here and now and has a purpose. So what is that? Lets review:

I am an encourager. I get real pleasure out of seeing those I love excell at something they love. I even get a kick out of them doing something I suggested, and then thinking it was their idea.
I am an entertainer. I love to make people laugh, even if it’s at me, not with me. I love to wrap my words around an idea, and turn a situation into a metaphor – or a parable.
I am a dreamer or a planner. I’ve always got a new plan or big idea. Something to make something more efficient, or steps toward a new goal.

OK, that’s the good side, lets see what I am when no one’s looking, so to speak, since they say that’s what you really are:

I’m a martyr. I always put others first, mostly because I want to, but truthfully, I am hoping for a little of the same for myself, and I admit I’m disappointed when I don’t get it.
I’m a cynic. I usually look on the bright side of everything except human nature. I tend to mistrust people who want to do something for me, especially if I don’t know them. Exactly opposite of what I hope others feel about me.
I’m a quitter. A start over-er. A runner away. If something gets to familiar, or to uncomfortable, most of my mind activity is focused on how to get away, or get out of or stop or change that something. Relationships, jobs, towns. Sometimes this tendency can be used for good, but mostly I feel like it’s my dark side.

OK, six answers. Three positive, three not so positive. All six absolutely honest. So, where do I go from here? That’s not all I am – or is it? Will it change daily?

Generosity of spirit

The power of intention.  It’s a book I read, and have since passed along to my sister.  It’s about the kind of thing we both believe in and tend to encourage each other on when we talk.  It isn’t something I take for granted.

The power of the sisterhood of women.  It’s a strength I believe in and it has been passed on to me and my sisters by my mother and her mother.  It’s the kind of thing we tend to take for granted until we need it.  It is NOT something to take for granted.

I intend to do a lot of things.  I just don’t follow through.  But my sisterhood believes in me and encourages me and supports me even when I do not, I will not ask for help.  This is something I CANNOT take for granted.

What to do, What to do?

OK, its been a week since I’ve posted. This, after a week of dutiful daily posting – just like I promised myself…

It’s been a little weird here in my life, and being the ‘always-up’ ‘glass-half-full’ type of chick that I am, I haven’t really wanted to admit that things were weird, and for that matter that weird might be an understatement.

Back on Thursday, I felt like I had all the energy in the world. I had meetings, and house showings, and check marks on every one of the 17 items on my Prioritized Daily Task List. Then things started to slip. Really, for no reason since I did a TV news interview from our house for sale, and that same day I’d gotten a sign call on that same house from a lady who drove by every day coveting that same house. We’d also gotten a call from one of my co-workers who had been showing our house to a couple who she thought might write an offer. And I got a great positive voice mail from my 23-year-old-brooding-literary-son. You’d think this would only spur on my energy and brighten my heretofore mediocre outlook, but nooooooo.

Could it be the growing negative balance in the checkbook? Probably. Could it be the endless showings of houses to people who are really never going to buy one? Likely. Could it be that I’m just pretending to be a Realtor and just the thought of attending a sales meeting or sometimes just going into the office scares the bejeezers out of me? Yup. Could it be the fact that I know the stuff that Downtown Dad and I have discussed is true and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it? Pretty much. Muscle and joint pain when I wake several times a night? Partially. Fatigue caused by waking several times a night? Yes. The fact that I can’t get my shit together enough to even walk for 15 minutes a day? Oh yeah. Could it be that feeling of worthlessness that comes from expending energy toward something almost daily and not making any money from it? Totally!

It’s depression isn’t it? Trouble is, when I took an anti-depressives a few years ago, it didn’t do anything but make me lose interest in sex. It’s hormones isn’t it? But am I doomed to a life of ingesting horse urine to feel like a more productive contributing member of society? God, I hope not.

I need to get a real job – but the trouble with that is that I have a possible stream of income coming that I would be foolish to turn down. Part-time real job then. Yeah right, part time = part intelligence with most employers. I’m not sure what to do.

Contact

Call me.

It doesn’t matter when, and if I answer the phone, if I know you, I will greet you with a cheery ‘Oh HI!’ like it’s 2:30 on a Sunday afternoon and you are my best friend in the whole wide world and I was expecting your call just now.

Even if its 5 a.m., or if I’m right in the middle of some business deal, or a TV show, or even if I am really not all that cheery. It’s a sickness, an addiction of sorts really. Pollyannaitis. The need to make others feel good – even if I don’t.

I even feel guilty if I am less than perky when people say hi to me. I can be on the verge of tears and if someone says ‘good morning’ I instinctively put on a smile and a happy voice to return their greeting. This feels fakey to me, yet I would not want to invite someone’s concern if I acted any differently than I usually do.

If you are my friend, I would hope that you would call me if you were feeling down and needed to talk. But will I burden you with that? Nosirree! Is this learned behavior? Is this a genetic trait? Mental illness? Can this be cured? Do I want to be cured?

On second thought, don’t call me. Email me.

Drugery

If this experiment is to be of any use, I really need to stick with it, through good times and bad. Especially the bad, since bad times are the times when I get all my ideas. Dark, unacceptable, ugly, unproductive ideas. Things that if people read them would make them think less of me. Things I need to explore, and archive. Things that will be of use to me later to write things that are publicly acceptable, bright and accomplish something.

Be Careful What You Ask For...

Our house still hasn't sold. If only we could line up all the people in town and walk them through, pointing out all of its fabulous features.....

Because of Downtown Dad’s high profile position, he tends to know many reporters. He happened to be talking to one the other day and mentioned that we have a house for sale and even though we keep dropping the price, it is not selling. When the reporter asked ‘who’s your Realtor’ and he answered ‘my wife,’ viola – a story was born. So yesterday, while I was home catching up on my moldy laundry with my new dryer, the TV reporter called asking if I’d be interested in being interviewed since I am in the unusual position of being a Realtor with my personal home on the market. Oh, joy. This is the LAST thing I want to do, but I absolutely have to, because first and foremost, in essence it’s a 3-minute commercial for my house!

This is exactly what I hate about sales. My whole world is crashing in on me because this house has been on the market 6 months, and I have to look sincerely into a camera tomorrow morning and put a positive spin on that. I am not that good at talking out of both sides of my mouth. Herewith then, are my ramblings and propaganda jotted down mainly to psyche myself up:

Speaking as a Realtor, this is a wonderful house to have listed. It’s almost totally brand new on the inside, spacious, with a large three-room addition off the back. There is a large fully fenced, treed backyard – there is even a tree house! It is in a very desirable neighborhood, and based on comparable sales, it is priced quite reasonably. Right now, the price is very close to the appraised/assessed value of three years ago – that was before the entire kitchen was replaced, two bathrooms were remodeled, the whole interior was painted a warm bright neutral color and new flooring was installed in most of the house. They say there are three factors to consider with the sale of a home: Price, Condition, and Location. We have lowered the price; it is in perfect condition and in an excellent location. This house has it all, but it still has not sold. Even the feedback from potential buyers has been positive, which is not very helpful because there isn’t anything left I can change or do to get it sold. I look at this as a wonderful opportunity for buyers right now. The right buyer just has not walked through the door yet.

Of course, I have done all the right things for my sellers (me): open houses, marketing the home with signs, flyers, and ads in publications and on the Internet. We even have the added benefit of the Park Company Kiosk at the mall, where Park listings are displayed exclusively. Fellow Realtors who have been around longer than I have, say that historically, September has always been a slow month for home sales. They cite reasons such as; people have their kids back in school, and are getting their own heads back in to work after the lake season; the weather is cooling off; and they are just staying inside.

The rapid market we have been experiencing for the last couple of years, even up to and including this summer, has been unusual. Realtors who’ve been in the business a long time say that this is not a downturn in the housing market, but rather a return to a more normal market. There are more than 1,400 homes on the market right now as opposed to 1,200 last year at this time up nearly 15 percent. The average time on the market is somewhere between 90 and 100 days instead of 80 to 90 days last year. The inventory, or supply of houses is starting to catch up to the demand, not as much as in bigger cities, but it is starting to affect us. More sellers are putting their homes on the market, houses are selling less quickly, and prices are no longer increasing as rapidly as they were in the spring, although locally the average sales price of approximately 160,000 is up just slightly over last year.

The market is changing, so what do we do? In addition to pricing houses to align with market trends, we agents need to be creative. We need to communicate with our sellers to educate them on what is happening, so that when an offer comes in and it’s lower than expected we don’t just let them reject it. We counter back with options. We aren’t doing our buyers any favors by letting them write unreasonably low offers on a home they can’t afford, but we can work with the buyer’s lender to help negotiate a mortgage that both gets the seller a fair price, but is also within the buyer’s means.

Speaking as a homeowner with a house for sale – I am mystified. I can only reduce the price so much, so how do I attract buyers? What are they not finding in this house that they are finding in another? I have an emotional attachment to this house, so it is frustrating that it is taking so long to find a buyer. However, I am not the only one. All of the three other homes I have listed right now, in varying price ranges and locations are also experiencing this slow down with very few showings. On the bright side, I can relate when they express their frustrations – we are all in the same boat. But that still does not bring a buyer. What I do with my sellers, and my husband is that I remind them that with mortgage rates now rising, the cost of gasoline hovering near $3 a gallon and house prices in some areas of the country just plain out of reach for many families, Fargo Moorhead and the surrounding areas are still a great place to purchase a home. There are still buyers out there, Fargo Moorhead is attracting new businesses every day, and those businesses are hiring and promoting people every day. Our economy is very good. As home sellers, we just have to make sure what we are selling looks sharp, and are priced competitively. Real Estate is still a great investment. It may take a little longer than it did last year, but homes will always sell.

Ahhh.... somewhere out there, someone will watch the news and see my house and say "Look Harold, that's the house we've always wanted! Lets go buy it!"

More Than Just Fluff

Even though I don’t like to admit it, washers and dryers play a central role in my life. I’ve owned several through the years. Some have come included with the house purchase, some I admit, I have lovingly brought into my home after hours of deliberation over the yellow Energy Guide label and the carefully worded features brochure. It’s not as if I usually form an emotional attachment to household appliances, but with a family of four – sometimes 5, two dogs, and a pool, I sadly confess that I do some form of laundry every day. My relationship with my laundry partners is like people who become best friends after serving in a war together, a sort of a bonding through adversity. Which is why, when the dryer that came with our house developed a squeak, which turned into a squeal, which developed a clunk, and eventually evolved into a gravel grinding, smoke emitting rasp, we had to break down and buy a new one.

Given my limited financial situation, I could not afford to ponder long on the choosing of the now deceased dryers’ successor. I called around to find only the quickest delivery options on the cheapest models. Turns out, a new dryers’ delivery option, including the essential removal of the old one, is the key to dryer salesmen’s negotiations.

According to the final lucky salesman I spoke to, the choice is simple.

“…of course just because this dryer is on the low end of the price scale doesn’t mean it is not reliable. And of course, its quality is indistinguishable from those that happen to be higher priced. It’s just that those lower priced ones (which to the untrained eye look to be about the same as the higher priced ones) are so much smaller, and take so much longer to dry since the loads have to be so small. Oh, and will you be taking this home in your minivan?”

Silence ensued while I envisioned Downtown Dad and me lugging, hoisting, and heaving this new “small” dryer down the stairs and around the corner into the basement laundry room, and then dragging, pulling and hauling out the old one. Obviously lacking the muscle tone necessary for dryer delivery and removal, I was easy prey for the imminent up sell.

“… over here, for just a few dollars more, is the large capacity model. Would you like us to take away the old dryer when we deliver this one to your home tomorrow?”

True to his word, the dryer salesman dispatched two burley men to deliver my sparkling new dryer and gently maneuver it into place beside the steadfast if not lackluster washer. Then, with all the sensitivity of a highway worker scraping up road-kill, they carted off the old one and drove away, leaving me and the old washer and the mountainous pile of damp, smoky, mildew-y smelling clothes plenty of time to bond with the new guy.

Dear Diary...

It occurs to me that other "bloggers" post their writings daily - no matter what it is they have to say. When I don't post for a day or two it isn't that I don't have anything to say, I just have apparently succumbed to performance anxiety. Knowing that people I know, and don't know are reading this doesn't necessarily make me nervous, it just makes it seem very important to only post 'good' stuff. 'Good' being entirely subjective.

So, having disclaimed, and rationalized I am now going to have a goal of posting something every day. No matter how inane, or boring, or pointless or unentertaining or (yikes) revealing.

My last post was September 30 when I was 'home alone' with the kids and a cold. Prior to that, I posted what I thought was a pretty good run at a thought provoking piece. Anonymous, however, thought differently. Sadly, I must give this anonymous person a bit of credit, because from that comment I came up with an idea for a really cool story!

In the days between that post and the one about the creepy Rose flavored vodka, I did some deep soul searching when faced with an opportunity to be a guinnea pig for the sake of pharmaceutical advancement for a really large sum of money. About as close as I'll ever come to an "Indecent Proposal," and it caused almost as much turmoil in my life. I decided against the three week study when I learned it would be with a drug not yet approved by the FDA. There is way more to this topic I want to say so maybe I'll do a post on it at a later date.

So there. I've caught you up on all the haps in my life... well sort of...

Stream of UN-consciousness

Wow, there's a totally original title. But, that's what cold pills do to your brain.

Started getting that cold-coming-on feeling yesterday. Accidentally took two pills, when the dosage was one. Drove home. Made it. Fell asleep. Had to take kids to Cats.

Next day. Downtown Dad had to drive to Siouxtown for a college reunion, he'll be gone overnight. It's Friday, can sleep uninterrupted.... Oh yeah, I'm a Realtor. Wedding of the daughter of a friend at 5. Back home, another cold pill. 8:44 bed time.

The Secret to Being a Cheerleader

The other day, while talking Downtown Dad through an episode of the doldrums, I found myself wishing I had not had such an aversion to cheerleaders in high school. Their too-bright smiles and polished perkiness now seemed important tools to me as I struggled to hold my level of emotional turmoil at bay while his washed over me like a level 5 hurricane. Surely, I thought, there was some secret technique for outward joy that cheerleaders learned along with those sharp and snappy synchronized motions. Even their spontaneous ability to chirp out something clever that rhymed was looking really useful to me just then. I wished at that moment that I had at least attended the cheerleading tryouts, if only for the scraps of skills I might have picked up.

Later, I kissed my beleaguered hubby goodbye as he trudged off to work, and waved enthusiastically from the door while pumping my fist in the air in what I hoped looked like a rah-rah gesture. It occurred to me that I could find help if perhaps there were some outlines of cheerleading skills on the Internet somewhere! Turns out there are, but these so-called skills are purely physical. As if I hadn’t already suspected, cheerleading is not a noble pursuit, entered into by a rare few spiritually endowed with abundant cheer. No, cheerleading is a sport! Cheerleaders don’t care about the game or sport or even the players they are cheering on. These girls and boys are focused solely on their performance, for which they win trophies – whether or not the team they were “cheering” won or lost. This revelation affirmed my original aversions, but did not help me in my quest for outward optimism while suffering from inward gloom.

OK, so cheerleading wasn’t the right word, maybe motivational speaker was more what I was looking for. Surely being the daughter and granddaughter of Southern Evangelical Baptist Ministers I had inherited a bit of the old balderdash gene. So that evening, in round two, I shifted my inner mental picture of me with pom-poms and a short skirt, to me in front of a congregation, fanning themselves, while occasionally nodding and murmuring amen. After a few half-hearted attempts at long dramatic pauses, crashing my fist into my palm, and ending-ah my words-ah with emphasis-ah, I had to scrap that notion too.

Just then, it dawned on me, that after 18 years of marriage, Downtown Dad and I have weathered a few storms together. Each one difficult and emotionally draining in its own way, but each one dealt with individually and from the soul, not with a ready-made bag of tricks. As it turns out, you don’t need any of those snappy jumps and kicks or that old time voice modulation-ah. To quote from the gospel of John, Paul, George, and Ringo – All you need is love.

Just thought you should know....

I have just had the very unfortunate experience of tasting Shakers' Rose Vodka. I'm not sure why that was even a "keeper" in their brainstorming session, but let me just tell you, if you can't already figure it out, PHYYUUUYKKK!

Their propaganda says different: "It is the most romantic vodka around, SHAKERS Rose, winner of the Best in Show award for flavored vodka at the 2004 World Spirits Competition and one of The Spirit Journal's top 50 spirits in the world." Yeah right.

First of all, it reminds me of old wrinkley powdered ladies with gloves and cracked tea cups. Not something that would necessarily sell drinking vodka, or tea for that matter. It has that overly perfumey roselike scent, (remember Liddle Kiddles from the 70s?) which in itself is unnerving coming from a martini glass. I'm not sure about the general population but I've never actually eaten a rose, consequently I can't objectively comment on the taste being rose-like or un-rose-like. What I can say is that you should never ever try this Vodka, no matter how pretty it looks.

I'm switchin' to Whiskey!

Luck be a Lady - who wants to buy my house!

A few weeks back, I read in my horoscope that September 17th would be the absolute luckiest day of the year for me. Add to that, the fact that there would be a full moon that night, which would magnify the whole effect.

As I read this revelation, I briefly pondered what would I need Luck in? Since I don't gamble, or fish, or even jaywalk that often, I’ve never really asked Luck for much. In fact, I usually consider getting lucky as an outcome of unexpected sex or at least as the end result of applying yourself or your skills effectively, rather than as a result of any cosmic occurrence of fortune. That’s why, as fortuitous as this prophecy was, it soon faded from my thoughts. Until, of course, the evening of September 17.

We hadn't done anything out of the ordinary that day, in fact, we'd done just about nothing. As evening drew near, Tessie decided to attend a college football game with a girlfriend and then spend the night at her house. Bear then, had the splendid idea of whiling away the rest of the evening at Barnes and Noble. While we were there, I happened upon that same horoscope magazine which reminded me that I was at this very moment experiencing the absolute luckiest day of my entire year. I felt like Garrison Keillor when my first thought was “well then, this is a pretty good day.” It was at that moment I got a phone call on my cell from a woman who wanted to see the-house-that-Downtown-Dad-and-I-are-still-trying-to-sell! Wheeeee! This must be the absolute luckiest day of the year for me! I made an appointment with her for the next day.

As we drove home from our favorite bookstore secure in the knowledge we had a very interested looker, Downtown Dad, Bear and I smiled at the full moon above and I swear it smiled back.

Friday the 16th

Sorry I haven't posted in a few days... I've been - well, too happy. As weird as it sounds, it makes sense to me - writers, being tortured, depressed, rather mopey beings; I can see why when things aren't going in the "Franklin-Covey-perfectly-planned-way" I envision, I, in my ever-glass-half-full kind of way, look cockeyed at the situation and share it so that others can laugh. It is not as easy to make people laugh when you are contented.

The Beach

We walk to the beach
With Grandma.
We always do.
On sparkly mornings, we pack a lunch with cherries and angel cake
And jam our beach bags with our bits and pieces.

Caitlyn, who is three, brings a pineapple jar with curves on the side,
A sky blue pot,
A pink rake,
And a red and yellow broom with a broken handle.

I take a turtle sand mold, and a screwdriver to make holes,
A Jell-O dome,
And an old purple bucket that the dog chewed
But still has Maddie in faded gold letters on the side.

Being practical, Carter brings a sandcastle mold
And a strainer to strain all the sand, a pooper scooper,
Three bottles of sun screen SPF 50, 50 and 30,
And three shovels, two are yellow and one is green.

We all go into go in the water,
But not Grandma.
Grandma is the look out for dogs and rip tides.
She uses the broom to sweep sand from our towels

We are going to build the sand castle with wet sand.
We are going to hope it will stay and not break.
We know it will fall over, because we always build it too close to the water.
It always does.
We always do.

...it's a shame they can't afford it...

Sometimes an opportunity presents itself, to deliver a great comeback line that is both well placed and well deserved, and if you're lucky, you have an appreciative audience.

On Monday, I got two voice mails on my cell phone, 10 minutes after we arrived home from vacation. The Realtor that left the first message said that she had some very serious buyers and she would like to show the-house-that-Downtown-Dad-and-I-are-STILL-trying-to-sell the next day. This bit of news sent us into joyous fits of joyous joy jigging. The second message was from a Realtor widely known as a Sleazy-Ass-Bitch (SAB), who informed me that she had faxed me an offer on the same house. Downtown Dad's response to this news was to start on another round of the joyous joy jig. When I didn't join him he stopped mid jig, hands still in the air, his head tilted quizically. I had to break the news to him that sadly, after 6 months on the market, unfortunately the first offer had come from a Sleazy-Ass-Bitch who had very likely faxed us a low offer. I added brightly, as I picked his chin up off of the ground, that the fact that someone was showing it the next day might work out as a bargaining tool for us.

After hastily offloading the vacation schmutz from the car and after an emergency pool-filter twig-ectomy, we were relatively settled. This re-entry ritual accomplished, neither one of us could stand the suspense and we jumped into the car to go see what the first person in 6 months was willing to pay for our house! On the way, I did try to prepare Downtown Dad for the worst. He feigned nonchalance, but I knew he was wound up.

Even though there was no one else in the office when we got there, we sidled up to the fax machine, as if it were someone to whom we were about to deliver a pick up line. I rifled through the stack and sure enough, there was a fax directed to me from the aforementioned SAB. I flipped through the pages until I found the one I was loooking for. The page with the price they expected us to accept, which I read out loud, 30 thousand t-h-i-r-t-y-t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d UNDER our asking price! Luckily, no one else was in the office, because as I'd invisioned, Downtown Dad's head blew off. Once I had taped his head back on, and mitigated the steam billowing from his ears, I gathered my forms and shuttled him as quietly as possible back to the car, reminding him that we did have a showing the next day.

The next morning I called the SAB and politely thanked her for the offer. Hoping to apply some pressure, I also told her that we were expecting an additional offer in the early afternoon, as soon as the house was shown. I assured her that I'd present both offers at the same time. She quickly asked if her buyers would have the right to ammend their offer. Hell yes, you sleazy ass bitch! Unfortunately for me, the other showing did not culminate in an offer, so I was left holding the cheese - as it were. I called the SAB and told her that the offer did not come in as I had thought, so she was free to ammend her offer, or would she like to be kicked in the teeth with my counter offer? She opted for the kick in the teeth which was, I told her sweetly, our lowest and best and, I added, we would not play the bargaining game.

Late that same evening, safely assuming that I'd turned off my cell phone, the SAB left me another voicemail saying that she'd faxed me her buyers' counter offer. Counter Offer? OK. What part of Lowest and Best didn't she understand? After I got my kids off to school that morning, and Downtown Dad off to work using the last of my tape to hold his head on. I added the crucial chemicals to the pool, and dutifully brushed up the undesolved excess. I fed and watered the dogs and the birds and showered and dressed myself. Returned phone calls, emails, blog posts and what ever else I could find to do untill there was virtually nothing left. I was forced to go to the office and look at the fax from the SAB.

It came as no real surprise that her "rediculous counter offer" was a barely more than the initial rediculous offer. A derisive laugh escaped me as I flung the fax into the air, which caught the attention of the other Realtors near my desk.

"Sleasy-Ass-Bitch." was all I needed to say. This prompted a flurry of tales of woe from everyone around me as to their own ill-fated dealings with this woman. Bouyed by their cameraderie, and a river of self riteous indignation, I picked up the phone and dialed the SAB's office, with 6 pairs of eyes and ears on me.

"I received the fax with your counter offer," I said smoothly, not bothering to identify myself. And then I paused a very long pause, waiting for the SAB to perhaps explain her motives.

"Yes, well, these kids are very flexible and they are pre approved." She said.

"Thats just great," I said, "You know, it's obvious these kids would really like to live in this house....."

"Yes, and they are willing to finish all those little unfinished projects....."

"Like I said, it's obvious they'd like to live there, but, it's a shame they can't afford it."

Silence.

6 pairs of eyes popped out of their sockets.

"Oh, do you mean you're rejecting our offer?"

Uh, duh, you sleazy ass bitch. "Well, better luck next time, Bye."

I didn't sell my house, but I was a hero for at least five minutes.

Why don't (t)he(y) write?

In the movie, Dances With Wolves, where John Dunbar has found an old skeleton on the prairie, the late Robert Pastorelli as Timmons says: "I'll bet someone back east is going, 'Now why don't he write?'"

Last night, as I fed my new addiction, reading 'just one more blog...' I opened my own page to check my hit counter. I watched in utter amazement as the digits inched toward 200 hits right there before my eyes! Just as amazing was the other counter which tells me how many, if any, people are visiting my site at that moment. There were 9! Nine people were reading my Blog! Wheeee! I wanted to know who they were. I wanted to hear their reaction to my posts. I wanted to invite them over for wine and cheese. I sat back and waited for the email notification telling me that someone had left me a comment. And I waited. And waited. And waited. Nothing.

Intellectually, I know from reading other peoples blogs, and their comments, that the percentage of responders is really low in relation to readers. For whatever reason, I don't respond to every post I read either. Emotionally though, in a maternal way toward my new baby blog, just starting to gather readers, I felt ignored, a little like the people back east, waiting for a letter from a skeleton on the prairie.

Bush is Toast

This will not be deep, nor will it even be too insightful, it might even be venomous, but I can no longer shelve the need to put my feelings about the Gulf Coast tragedy into words. Even though I am geographically far removed, some of my dearest, closest friends live in that region. Some have suffered the ravages of the storm; some have borne the burden of housing and providing for the refugees. This is an American human tragedy, the response to which, defies comprehension. The sheer magnitude of natural force that created this, the tragic wreckage the storm left in its wake and the human devastation both physical and psychological is almost more that I can even fathom. But, as if that wasn’t enough, the keystone cop-ish federal response is absolutely gut wrenching. Having read many rants, essays and transcripts over the last week, I do feel a little better about coming out of the closet – as it were – about my anger toward Bush. I feel like by posting this I’m furthering the “Emperor Has No Clothes” scenario, but I’m jumping on the bandwagon anyway.

In my growing distrust of the Im-POTUS, as I’ve come to call Bush Jr., I admit that I’ve wished for someone or something to come along with the right combination of words or ideas that would show him up (and shut him up). I imagined some giant Godzilla-like monster would arise from the depths of the sea and personally show George Bush what it’s like to be ‘overthrown.’ In my imagination, the monster was green and scaly; I never honestly thought it would be a very real hurricane.

Yes, I’m a liberal – some call me an old hippie. I was born during the Eisenhower administration, formed some important views during the Kennedy years, scratched my head, and kept my mouth shut during my parent’s Nixon halcyon days, voted for Carter since it would most piss off my parents, and then in an abrupt about face, voted Reagan twice. I sat out the next few years, and then was charmed by Clinton, again twice. I’ve wondered in the last few days, if a natural disaster of this magnitude had struck during the Clinton years, if we might not have seen him and Hilary in amongst the people, handing out water, toilet paper, and hugs. Not even in a second rate monster movie would you find the Bushes stooping to that.

Why? Why didn’t the leader of our country cut his vacation short once news of the impending disaster overtook the airwaves?

Why? Why didn’t he mobilize the undeployed National Guard units still in the contiguous United States?

Why? Why did it take him 5 days to do a cursory flyby to declare this a national disaster?

Bill Clinton may have had a mistress, but George Bush was screwed by Katrina, and damned if I don’t think he should have to be grilled just as hard as Clinton was.

First Day of School

Bearly and Tessie in their annual "First Day of School Pose"

Can't We All Just Get Along?

This past spring, my son Bear’s best friend, Bill, invited him to a concert. Bear asked his father and I if he could go, and naturally, we asked him who was performing, and how much he needed for the tickets. He couldn’t name the band – Josh Mcsomebody he thought, but he wouldn’t need any money since Bill’s church gave his family the tickets. Downtown Dad and I exchanged raised eyebrows. I told Bear it might be OK, but I would still like to know who the artist was. Turning to my trusty Internet, I Googled “josh christian concert.” I found a link to the "Bold Truth Tour.” Their tour schedule included a stop in our town, so I looked a little deeper, clicking on the video clips of past events. The clips I saw were nothing short of an infomercial, selling Mr. McDowell’s all-about-me ‘church-o-matic.’ (Isn’t there some sort of sin about having too much pride, and what does pride goeth before again?) From what I could tell, McDowell was using multilevel marketing techniques in his rallies to net teen and even preteen followers from concertgoers. Apparently, attendees are asked to fill out an information card that then is turned over to local churches who use them for follow-up contacts. But wait! There’s more! Each person who makes a decision for Christ will get a personalized letter, a phone call or an e-mail contact after the event with an invitation to join a local church youth group! Unbelievable.

Until last year, Bill was home-schooled by his mom Hilda. Home-schoolers, not all, but those in my experience, tend to be a little, how shall I say this… fundamentally religious, bent on selling their flavor of belief to everyone, inflexible, paranoid, intolerant, and condescending, even un-friendly to non-church-going-yet-open-minded-to-others’-beliefs-people, like me. Hilda is no exception, but I digress. I called Hilda to confirm my suspicions. I told her about my web findings and that from what I had seen I was unwilling to let my 10-year-old son be subjected to that kind of predatory marketing pressure, especially since we are not ‘practicing’ Christians. She, of course, was taken aback at both my confession and reaction. I assured her that while we didn’t subscribe to any one organized religious belief, we certainly did not ritually sacrifice goats, nor dance naked around a fire, although we heartily supported anyone’s choice to do so or not do so. I explained that we were just uncomfortable exposing our 10-year-old son to what we thought would be extreme psychological peer pressure by a group of people trying to recruit him into a society that he does not understand yet. Needless to say, the conversation deteriorated from there, with her asking questions about my religious upbringing and what horrible traumatic incident could have led me to this state of mind. Being good Midwestern women, I declined her generous invitation and we remained polite to the end of the conversation. We literally did not speak again until this week. Despite phone calls to Bill from Bear over the summer months, somehow they also lost contact.

Bear ran into Bill at Back-To-School-Night this week, and in that innocent joyful way that children have, hooked up again as if there had been no 3-month lapse. Hilda and I chatted amiably as we passed in our room-to-room meet your teacher ritual. I frankly had forgotten the whole concert episode. As we were leaving, Bear asked if Bill could spend the night, I agreed. Hilda however, hesitated, and while she thought it would be OK, said that she would first have to ask her husband. It was then that I recalled our uncomfortable last conversation.
Later, after all permissions were granted, when Hilda dropped Bill off for the night, we chatted some more about what we did over the summer. I mentioned that my daughter Tessie was in a local month long musical theatre-based arts program, the teachers of which were amazingly talented singers, dancers, and actors. I added that I felt she was very lucky to have received mentoring from these amazing college-bound teenagers. Hilda’s lips began to purse and she said that while she would like Bill to be involved in a summer educational program like that, she really had serious doubts as to how it would affect him. I must have had a puzzled look on my face because she further explained that it was her belief that any male involved in theatre or dance was gay, and she did not want her Bill to be exposed to any of that. My puzzled look slid icily into a mouth-only smile, which I freeze-dried to my face, all the while trying to keep the banshee of indignation from shrieking out of my mouth and down her throat. I said, “Oh really, and why is that?”

“Because” she simpered, “as you well know, homosexuality is an abomination, it’s not natural, they weren’t born that way. Something must have happened to them, around Bear and Bill’s age, someone made them that way. I don’t want that to happen to Bill.”

The banshee banged dangerously against my clenched teeth. “Oh, you mean like selling their lifestyle to impressionable young kids like your precious Josh McDowell does? Why, I bet they ask cute little boys to fill out an information card which then is turned over to local gay organizations who use them for follow-up contacts!” “Say it!” screamed the banshee! “Say it!” “But wait! There’s more! Each young child who makes a decision to be Gay, (because after all, it is a choice) will get a letter, a phone call or an e-mail contact with a lewd invitation, right?!” “SAY IT!” I swallowed the banshee – temporarily.

“Gosh, Hilda, I’m not sure what to say,” I finally managed to say. “We’ve just always had gay friends, some who’ve been in monogamous relationships longer than we’ve been married. My kids don’t really think anything about it, and as far as role models go, isn’t what our kids see pretty much filtered through our attitudes as parents?”

“Oh,” she said in a pervasively polite way, “you don’t see it that way I suppose.”

I smiled my freeze-dried smile, and said something bland about examining my own intolerances before I threw stones at others… but I couldn’t really hear it over the banshee.