Sue’s Place

Biden on Bush’s ’statement’ to the Knesset today:

“This is bulls**t. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset … and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”

And a word of advice for the President from Senator Biden:

Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that if the president disagrees so strongly with the idea of talking to Iran, then he needs to fire his secretaries of state and defense, both of whom Biden said have pushed to sit down with the Iranians.

Does your iPod need recharging? Cell phone out of juice? Here’s what you need: a solar-powered bra that can generate enough electric energy to charge a mobile phone or an iPod.

Jerusalem Post: ““Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’”

In other words, Reductio ad Hitlerum or the inevitable lapse into Godwin’s Law by a man who recently discovered the Internets. On Israeli soil? Oy, a shandeh!

Obama wants to talk with Iran? Apparently, so does Secretary of Defense Gates. CNN just spliced that sentence out of the coverage.

“One in four American women under the age of 25 report that they have been sexually assaulted, according to the nation’s largest rape crisis counseling organization, RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.” And one of them, Crystal, tells her story on YouTube.

Had some afternoon time to upload new header photos. That’s what online photo albums are for.

Egad. My high school reunion looms.

40 years is simply beyond comprehension.

Apparently, I was hard to find. Kudos to Mikey Howard for remembering how to spell my maiden name.

September 27 looms.

Note to Kid #2: Go to the orthopedist. Call me after your appointment for a mother-consult.

Sick, by Shel Silverstein who has left us too early but with such a touching legacy.

“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay,
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more–that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue–
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke–
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is–what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is—Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”

You both know why. Thanks for making motherhood worth it.

The Diamond D and the Dreadful Dragon

Dozens of years ago, in a drafty castle, Duke David of Dundeedle did dwell. Duke David was dumpy but dignified. And he had a darling daughter named Dora who was a delight.

One day Dora danced through the door in the dear little dress decorated with daffodils. “Doodley-doo, doodley-doo”, Dora sang, as she danced. “Oh, hello, dear, dumpy daddy”, said Dora to Duke David of Dundeedle.

“Dora, my darling, dimpled daughter,” said Duke David. “You are indeed delightful, so I have a dandy present for you.”

“Do tell,” said Dora. “Do describe this doo-dad, daddy”.

“It is a dazzling Diamond D dangling from a chain!” So, hanging the D around Dora’s dimpled neck, Duke David of Dundeedle departed through the door.

Although Dora and Duke David didn’t know it, someone else dwelt in the castle. This someone was Donald, the Dreadful Dragon of Dundeedle.

“I am Donald, the Dreadful Dragon of Dundeedle. I live in a dungeon downstairs in Duke David’s dwelling. It is a deep dungeon, a dark dungeon - a deep, dark, damp, dank, dreary dungeon. It is a dump!”

Donald used dozens of D words - which was the only nice thing you could say about him. Otherwise he was a dud.

Read the rest of this entry »

Having dogs means having carpet spots until you get down there and clean them. Oh sure, you clean them half-heartedly when they happen (and you hope they hit the hardwood and not the limited carpet in the house) and then on a rainy Sunday afternoon, both girls find the carpet more appealing than being outside in the storm. This afternoon meant tackling all their spots - ones from muddy feet, ones from chewing “carpet-safe” pressed rawhide, and one that you absolutely cannot identify. There are two tricks to removing pet spots: (1) good pet spot remover and (2) ruin a dish towel you used to love.

No matter what the directions say, the spot does not get removed unless you get to dog-level and work at it.

They’re gone. The girls have been reprimanded (stern looks suffice). The carpet is again original looking. I also ironed everything in the pile and watched everything I had TIVO’ed. It was that kind of Sunday afternoon.

Simcha usually sleeps happily in her crate but thunder makes her crazed so I plopped her in the bed last night and we watched the news on every channel tell us of gloom, doom and impending tornado disaster together. Feeling a bit like Dorothy and Toto (Simcha is a Toto look-alike), she shivered and whimpered as I held her. Almost nothing calmed her down except the cessation of thunder.

Remembering that the rescue society recommended a swaddling blanket for terrified pups, I took a pillow and put it on top of her body (face open) and held the whole package. Sure enough, she stopped shivering in fear and laid there in quieter angst.

We fell asleep in a secure location around 1:30 a.m. Checked on storm damage at first light and things appear OK here.

How’d you do at your home?

Yesterday, Wash U, my alma mater, asked for money and it was in my pile of “things to do when checkbooking,” but I removed it today.

Nope, sorry. WU isn’t getting my money this quarter.

Go Bears!

Don’t know how many times I’ve driven past the Police/Fire training center on Church Street but today, thanks to Tom’s (all the good stuff is here) brilliant ConvergeSouth idea, I got to go inside. Captain Harold Haynie gave us an impromptu tour after I drooled over his video equipment and was mesmerized by the intro to the training show (Behind the Flames). This fabulous facility was being used by training class groups, rookie groups, firearms qualifying groups and Officer Sizemore showed us the indoor shooting range where we discussed lead poisoning (bullets are made of lead). He and I share good friends in Capt. Drew Canady and Sgt. Andy Russell (both retired and in their second career genesis).

The conference room is efficient and has a spartan beauty mixed into the technology. The big auditorim has a mounted projector I covet, power and Internet at every seat, and stuff that whirrs down from the ceiling when certain buttons are pressed. The entire facility is decorated in “early firefighter.” I was touched by the photo plaque tributes to officers and firefighters who “ended their tours” too early.

I asked Capt. Haynie if he’d do a breakout session at ConvergeSouth and after watching his film editing, web streaming and roomful-of-technology skills, I swear he asked me, “What would I talk about?”

Picture me, smacking my forehead into the door frame. We have such unpolished jewels in this city.

From Brad Miller:

Dear Friend:

I released the following statement earlier today:
I will cast my vote as a delegate in Denver for Senator Barack Obama. The decision was not easy. Senator Clinton has run an impressive campaign, and has spoken eloquently to the concerns of working and middle class American families. She is one of the great leaders of this generation.

“Senator Obama understands that he has the chance not just to win the election this year, but to be a great president. Americans know that Republican policies have failed because Republican ideas are wrong. Americans know that our government has not acted, to use Franklin Roosevelt’s words, as trustees for the whole people, but have taken the side of powerful economic interests on every issue. Americans want a fundamental change in course.

“Senator Obama will seize that opportunity.

“If Senator Obama and Democratic candidates up and down the ticket win this year and then deliver next year, we can build a consensus that will last a generation.”

The primary is over and we had four Web sites (two ran against each other). It’s strange how we try to dissociate the candidates from their Web sites and give the sites their own personalities and peccadilloes. Just to sum up, we had 3 winners (the math dictated we could not have had 4 out of 4) and that’s not half bad.

Teresa Sue Bratton goes on to the November election.
Judge Hassell moves ahead to a runoff.
The school bonds passed.

Not a bad day’s work. It was just a very long day that lasted 5 months. (I’m with the Professor - I hated to lose the Greenway.)

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Kudos and congrats to Jay Ovittore, who ran an upstanding campaign. I hope he runs again, perhaps for a different office. He has lots to give.

After a downtown meeting, I voted about 10:45 a.m. and waited in line 10 minutes at Westminster Presbyterian Church, which I thought was fairly surprising given the early voting (there were 7 voting machines). Recent TV news reports that 100,000 Guilford County citizens voted in today’s primary.

All election return links are here, local primary results are here, statewide links are here. My out-of-town friends say that “everyone” is talking about North Carolina on the news.