Odds and Ends

Not sure which of these are the odds and which the ends, but there's a bunch of 'em. Might take a while to read. Go get a cup of coffee, and maybe a muffin. Then find a comfy place to relax as you read.

1. Finally, this morning I saw Sarah Palin in an interview where she sounded almost reasonable and perhaps worthy of being in politics on a national level. Frankly, it was a relief as I had been terrified of the prospect of her being VP. Now I’m starting to think I would be only annoyed rather than terrified. My impression is that maybe her “handlers” in what I’m sure was a well-intentioned effort exerted too much pressure on her to be something different than her true self and inadvertently aided her only in coming off as a bumbling idiot in earlier outings. So now I’m looking forward to what I think could actually be a real debate between her and Biden. At least I hope it will be a real debate. Can we keep gender out of it? If so, the potential for real debate is possible. If not, I will sigh and realize we aren’t quite evolved as far as I’d hoped.


2. Bailout or no bailout? That is the question. Well, what if we turned it on its ear? What if instead of bailing out the fat cats on Wall Street we bailed out the little guy? What if instead of pumping billions into the big corporate machine, we pumped it out to those who are struggling to meet those subprime mortgage payments? Why does it have to be a top down effort? Why not build from the base? These are just brainstorming thoughts on my part so it might be completely unfeasible. However, if I were a Washington insider that’s the idea I’d throw out there and at least research its feasibility.


3. Yesterday, W called at 5:25 p.m. to let me know that he couldn’t pick N up from after school care as he normally does on Tuesdays (after school care runs until 6:00 p.m.). If this had been an emergency I would’ve been fine with it. If this had been something that came up suddenly I would’ve been fine with it. Given that he said he’d forgotten to mention it on Monday and then hadn’t found the time to let me know earlier than he did on Tuesday I was anything but fine with it. If it’s my time to have N and something comes up I can call W and ask if he’s available, but it is not even an option to just tell him that I can’t care for N at that time and he’ll have to do so. Nope, I have to find and pay for a sitter if he is unavailable. On the other hand, if W pulls a stunt like yesterday I have to change my plans to accommodate him, or I have to find, and pay for, a sitter. Grrr. . . There is an inequity here that is quite galling.


4. N wanted to have his birthday party at the local ice rink (he loves to ice skate) rather than my idea of having it at a local park with a nice play area. I was hesitant, but after finding out that it was not much more expensive to have it at the ice rink than renting the pavilion at the park (and at the ice rink they provide refreshments and goody bags which I would have had to do myself if we’d done it at the park), I agreed to it and booked it. The day after I booked it, N was talking to some of his friends, found out they wouldn’t attend if it was at the ice rink (they don’t know how to ice skate), and so he wanted to know if we could change back to doing it at the park. I told him no, because I’d had to put down a non-refundable deposit with the ice rink. Now I have an unhappy boy because he is getting his birthday party at the place he insisted upon. If it weren’t for the non-refundable deposit I’d be tempted to cancel the whole damned thing and not have a party at all. I know he’s just a kid, but a little gratitude would go a long way here.


5. I seem just a bit scatterbrained lately. Last night I took a load of clothes from the washer and put them in the dryer. This morning I went to get the clothes out of the dryer. They were still wet. I had never turned on the dryer. Duh. . .


6. French toast is good, and you know what? It really doesn’t take all that long to make, just the time to beat up a little egg batter, dip the bread and fry it up. Oatmeal takes almost as long. N and I had French toast for breakfast yesterday. We should do it more often.


7. This weekend N plays in another “Big Soccer Tournament.” I hear there will be 175 teams there of various age groups from at least three or four states. At least this one is closer to home and won’t require staying overnight with a fellow blogger. (You do realize, don’t you, that the only reason I blog is to make connections all over the world so that no matter where I travel I can save money on accommodations by staying in bloggers’ homes and taking advantage of their hospitality, soft guest beds, hot showers, and free food from their kitchens? Well, if you didn’t, you do now.) Fortunately, this is W’s weekend to have N so he gets to take him to the 8:00 a.m. game while I sleep late, blissfully unburdened with soccer mom duty for a bit. I’ll go over for at least a game or two, but not the early morning one. I’ll definitely make the Sunday afternoon championship game if his team makes it that far (and given their so far undefeated season I’d say they have a good chance) because I wouldn’t want to miss seeing that.


8. Last weekend BJ, N and I attended a fundraiser for a local charity. It’s the first time we’ve really officially done anything public as the three of us. I introduced BJ to a couple of friends of mine. I didn’t introduce him as anything like boyfriend, just as BJ with no further explanation made. I don’t know what they thought of him or the fact that I was with him. It felt awkward though, at least to me, maybe because they are friends of W’s too. I don’t know how BJ felt about it.


9. Can a couple separate and still attend the same church comfortably? That is a quandary for both me and W. He and I both enjoy our church. It is a small congregation, not a mega church so we definitely run into one another there. However, his circle of friends there and mine, while having some overlap, tend to be different in general. He tends to hang with the geriatric crowd for the most part. I tend to run with the parents of school age children and with the LGBTQA (yeah they keep expanding the list of those included with the Q being “questioning” and the A being “allies” for those not in the know) group. Because of the type church it is, we aren’t looked down upon for divorcing, and I’m not aware of anyone feeling the need to place blame or take sides. At first, we both thought that one of us might need to change churches to maintain comfort and peace, but it seems to be working for us at least for now. I guess the real test will be when one of us brings a new person from our lives into the church (and from the sound of things W may well have a new paramour in the not so distant future so he may be the first of us to bring someone else to church as BJ isn’t a big church person).