I had the opportunity to see various of my well loved friends this weekend. Some traveled distances to get here. It made me wish that I had the ability to make everyone I wanted to see regularly be magically with a short commute from me. Another ability I would need is keep in touch and make events for us to get together. When I get to spend time with you guys it makes me just want to spend more. Okay enough mushy talk. Peace out

The Anaheim White House an amazing restaurant is being boycotted because it has named one of the private dining rooms after our 44th president Barack Obama. One comment the restaurant has gotten is that I don't mind an African-American as president but I won't support a Marxist. How about we support the Anaheim White house and book that room? The food is marvelous.

I am sending my positive thoughts and asking all my friends do the same. The last 8 years have been sad, scary, depressing and alarming. I am going to pray that whoever gets elected will be the right person for the job. I have a very strong opinion on who that is. We all do. Whoever gets the White House has a big mess to clean up. The country has a bad economy, a stupid war and has lost prestige with the rest of the world. Domestically we are so divided. There is so much anger and hate out there. If we want to leave a better world for the children we have a lot of work ahead of us. So take a minute and think positive.

I am curious what political signs you have seen? I live in a very republican county and I see mostly local election signs, a few Obama and a 2 months ago Ron Paul signs.

What have you seen?

Grab the nearest book.

Open to page 56.

Find the fifth sentence.

Post the text of the sentence in your journal with these instructions.

Don't dig for the coolest book or the intellectual one; Pick the closest.

My find:::

The dog appraised him as well.

1. Comment on this post.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Think of 5 fictional characters and post their names and your comments on these characters in your LJ.

Selenesue gave me L. I am ashamed to admit I found this tough.

1. Lucy from Peanuts. Strong tough girl who went after what she wanted. Not the nicest person.

2. Luke Skywalker goofy kid who yearned for adventure.

3. Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. A girl who looked at life from a different angle than everybody else. I loved her in the movie version.

4. Lucy Steele from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. A pushy sly girl who did not care who she hurt to get what she wanted. Not a good person at all.

5. Linus also from Peanuts. A dreamy artistic musician whose music was a revelation.

I was watching "Real time with Bill Maher". Someone asked what value a small town mayor could bring to Washington. The answer was what was wrong with a small towns? Listening to that I was stumped. You feel that you cannot answer that without insulting all those who live in and love small towns. I wanted to know the answer. What are small town values and how can they be a benefit in a larger setting?

I think I have a reply. I feel that when someone answers with such a statement that effectively ends conversation that should be called on the fact that they don't have an answer. I am not from or do I currently live in a small town. I want to know what small town values are. If someone is going to have an effect on my life I want to be able to ask questions and really get the answer.

A woman who states that sex education should be just "say no" and abstinence only teaching should be questioned when her child has an (I assume) unplanned pregnancy when she runs for public office.

I am so tired with political spin. Or is it that I wish my side was better at it?

K and I visited family in Arizona. The weather was 80 at night and 100 or so during the day. K decided to rent a convertible, a Spyder Mitsubishi. Now as most of you know I burn very easily. I have been teasing him that he is using his (sorry babe) middle age crazy on rental cars with me. He rented a red Mustang in March. The car was too small for us but boy was it fun. Especially at night. The wind in our hair, the views, the moon and great music blasting from the radio. During the day it was kinda cool but too hot. We wondered what Top Gear would say about it and how fast the Stig would get it around the track.

Some say he can drive so fast that a sunburn would never find him.

This is in response to SashaKhan's request for anti-torture blog.

I love America. I love the ideals that are written into the Constitution as I understand it and the Declaration of Independence. This is a country that is founded on ideals of equality and justice. I am grateful for the opportunities and life that I have as an American 21st century women.

I feel that as an American it is my right and responsibility to disagree with the bad policies of my government. If I disagree it does mean I am not patriotic. Stolen from Frederick Douglass. To be a patriot means to love my country for its good traits and acknowledge it's sins and transgressions.

Sooo..... I do not think America is perfect. I do not think everything this country has done is right. We are not the good guys 100% of the time. I think we can be but like a normal human we have a long way to go. This country is self righteous, money grubbing and to involved in people's private lives. If Americans had been treated like the prisoners of Abu-Grabh or water boarded the President and the nightly news would be up in arms for the inhumane treatment.

I think my great nephew's grandchildren will still be dealing with aftermath of the past 5 years.

Sorry Sasha this may not be a blog against torture it is just a rant.

El Munadi came back from a business trip in Vietnam ill. He had fever, cough, headache and body aches. I followed 2 days later. I actually missed 3 days of work! El Munadi and I went to the doctor on Tuesday and I am very glad we did. Something about K's cough had the doctor checking his oxygen levels. So he gets this respiratory treatment. The doctor sort of fits me into the treatment by sort of looking at me from a distance. I I coughed several times during the visit and ended up with the same treatment. I am sure if more was wrong he would have checked. The expectorant was annoying but I could feel the effect shortly. K and I have not been this sick in quite a while and I hope to never have this again. Both of us have not had much of an appetite and probably have lost a little weight. Unfortunately this is not long standing. I know Joeguppy has been sick but I hope nobody else is.

Recently I watched Confederate States of America. This is a movie curiously put in the comedy aisle as a mocumentary a history if the South won the American Civil War. I find this movie fascinating in a train wreck kind of way. The movie is disturbing because the possibility is it could have happened. Slavery continued and expanded. Women in the 21st century still doesn't have the vote. Modern sale techniques and gadgets are used for slavery. In this world more people are devalued. You really have to be a white Christian male to have value. Blacks, Asians, Latinos and women are not full citizens. The country is Christian by law and the Catholics just barely qualified. Everything else is deported or put in reservations.

There has been discussion that we are in a age that is too prissy about language. The need to be politically correct has been overdone. This movie reminds me that there is a reason that this has happened. There are jokes and slighting remarks about all kind of groups throughout the ages. Little Men by Louisa May Alcott has an derogatory story about an Irish girl in there. If some how we could really value all people we would be better off. We has a race would not commit atrocities.

There was discussion on Sunday about going to the Auld Dublin in The District which is where I work on Friday 1/11/08. Are
we still on?

My resolutions are similar to those I do most years. More exercise and to be more social. El Munadi and I often stay at home or do something with just us cuz it is easier. I think for me. K is very social and would have a ton of people around. Or at least this is how his life was before me.

I am also trying to be more positive. What happened to Benazir Bhuto reminds me of the fanatics in the world. I wish to concentrate on good things. Laughter, wordplay the joy of friends and laughter. For 2008 I wish for peace in the world. No violence. I will settle for my friends to be healthy in the new year.

For the last month or so I have been mildly ill. I tend to get colds and coughs which drag my energy down. Also I have been working strange hours. Tuesdays I work 5am to 2pm putting the new book displays up. I haven't had the wit or energy to even turn the computer on.

In a few days Kevin and I will be married 20 years. 10/27 to 11/4 we are going on a cruise down the Mexican coast. The cruise is bitter sweet. My parents booked the cruise and after my father died my mother didn't want to go and offered it to us. So it is the perfect thing for a 20th anniversary but we would not have chosen Mexico.

Jane Austen is a much loved writer by many. Her works are read over and over. There are world wide clubs that discuss her work. They have been made into plays, movies and that plots are used in areas from Beverly Hills to Bombay. But each reader has a private Austen.

What is yours? Whether you love her or hate her you have an image what is it?

Time has this habit of changing speeds. There are moments that go on forever and others that speed by. The ticking of the clock goes at the same rate but the perception is different. A good movies makes the time speed by. A bad one makes you notice every minute like being trapped in a small box.

Currently I am one of many putting a bookstore together. The process has really only been going on since the end of June but it feels longer. Maybe it is working 6 days a week and scheduled from 8:30 to 7 with an hour lunch. On the fourth of July we worked from 8:30 to 1:30 and it felt like I only worked part time. The early days were exhausting with moving boxes and carrying hundreds of books. But the physical has slowed down. The question now is when will we be done. We are suppposed to open tomorrow. But there is lots of construction things that need to be done. The goal is almost there because at least the builing has the right sign on it.

Thank you for the warm wishes hugs and thoughts from the LJ community. My family appreciate it. K and I are coping well. My Mom's brother and sister have come from Texas for the funeral. K sister and her husband are coming also. When people ask me how I am doing I am calm and serene. It is in moments like this that I cry. K and I have been preparing ourselves for a parents death for years. One of the problems of both of us being the baby of the family and our parents 30 and more years older. My comfort is my dad lived a long time and had a good life. He achieved the goal of seeing his son grow up. When he retired he kept active because he did not want to die straight after retiring. I cry when I think how I will miss him. He will never go to the Brazilian restaurant. He will never listen to my mother and I argue politics again. In the comfort of my home posting a life journal to my friends I take the moment now to cry. I know there will be many moments when the tears will flood. Rusty's death helped both K and I with the grieving process. We had a better understanding of ourselves thru her.

My father died yesterday. He was 85 years old. In his time he saw many things. He was a child of the Depression. He remembered Pearl Harbor and fought in WWII. He saw Glenn Miller in one his last American performances. He was stationed in the Middle East, in Egypt, Bahrain, Palestine. After the war he moved from his native New York to Texas where he met and married a hazel-eyed red headed woman. He smoked 3 packs of cigarettes a day until the first studies about lung cancer came out. He decided that he wanted to see his 3 year old son grow up and quit smoking cold turkey. When his second child came he hoped for a son, Jim. When I was born the birth announcement said "Our princess has arrived." He worked in the aerospace industry for 35 years. He worked on stuff that went into space. He was proud, intelligent and stubborn. He read politics, history and the newspaper daily. He liked Fox news and thought that CNN was Clinton News Network. He was the child of divorce but was married to the same hazel-eyed redheaded women for 56 years. I am glad that he died peacefully with son, daughter and wife with him at home. He was an active man that would have hated a lingering death. I will miss him.

In the "District" a new shopping mall at Jamboree and Barranca there will be an Irish Pub owned by people from Ireland right next to the new Borders where I will be working. There is also a restaurant called the Winery near by.

After listening to the radio about the sub prime mortgage fiasco that is happening I have been thinking of the deadly sins. My education in this list comes as does all knowledge from movies. Camelot and 7 to be exact.

Greed

If lenders were not trying to put people into mortgages they can't afford and may not have understood. If the borrowers were not trying to get something for nothing. I have more problems with those lenders who deliberately lied to people.

Enron and the savings&loan scandal are two other examples.

Can anyone think of any other deadly sin?