Saint Paddy's day or Fair Laddies Day

Today is Saint Patrick's Day, a good excuse to drink green beer and say "top o' the mornin'" to your neighbors. And I usually like holidays since they provide a good excuse for crafting and decorating.  However, St. Paddy's is the one day I don't celebrate, but I don't usually tell people why. It seems to offend them.

I personally think Ireland would be better off today if Christianity had never been introduced to the island. I realize that even as pagans the Irish didn't always get along with each other. But Christianity, and its different sects of rituals and beliefs, seems to have done more than its fair share of tearing the occupants of Ireland apart.  

How different would the political spectrum of Ireland be if everyone there suddenly became atheist?  They could still hate the British. But I think they, as a people and a country, would be more unified.  If a fellow Irishman walked down the street wearing Ulster orange, it would no longer mean he was Protestant. It would just mean he liked orange. 

The recent spate of killing soldiers and police officers seems to be bringing "the troubles" to the forefront of Ireland's problems again.  They've had a peace for as long as my memory serves after the Omagh bombing.  And I have to wonder if religion is really a blanket for the economic chill that Ireland is now experiencing.  Economic hardship can always act as a catalyst for protests and retaliations.  But religion serves to soften the blow.  Religion makes the cause more just, the offenders less murderous.  

The shamrock serves as a symbol of Ireland after Saint Patrick used the three-leafed clover to explain the Holy Trinity to a pagan who didn't understand that Christianity claimed it only worshipped one god when it actually worshipped three.  To me, that's when the troubles began.  Ireland would be better off if the pagan had told Saint Patrick that the three leaves represents the way a man should live -- eat (brown bread), drink (Irish whiskey) and be merry.  Maybe the Irish could change their official holiday from St. Paddy's day to Fair Laddies day. The men would have to dress like women for the day -- skirts and high heels with makeup and hair curlers. That act alone might bring more peace to any nation than any prayer ever spoken.

And the Edward R Murrow award goes to Comedy Central

I've been a fan of the Daily Show for a long time. I remember when it came on at 7 pm and was hosted by the blonde giant.  When Jon Stewart took the helm, I wasn't so sure. The first month was a little rocky. But Jon found his footing, the writers found their niche, and the supporting cast filled in the rest.  

Not having been a fan of George W, I loved when the Daily Show trounced the administration. A job made incredibly easy by the ineptitude, incompetence and downright corruption of the administration.  Jon and crew made it easy to laugh, and that was better than crying. (For anyone who thinks the Iraq war is/was a good thing, I urge you to watch the documentary Iraq For Sale.)

Then the Daily Show began to morph. It grew a little edgier, its digs got a little deeper.  Jon took on the notorious Tucker Carlson and the Crossfire crew.  He berated faux reporters for being entertainers but passing themselves off as newsmen.  When Carlson tried retaliating with a similar charge, Stewart reminded him that the Daily Show is on the Comedy Channel.

However, with the Daily Show's latest hammering of CNBC, I'm thinking the show needs to move from Comedy Central to its own media outlet.  There are some days I actually get more news from the Daily Show than I do from watching morning, afternoon or evening "news" shows.  And while other reporters are telling us that "no one could see" the debt debacle heading our way like a Hurricane Katrina, no one is asking the hard questions except for the crew at the Daily Show. 

I'm no whiz at finance and I still think a hedge fund sounds like it should be in the gardening section at Kmart, but even I knew this gravy train couldn't last forever.  House prices were going to have to either stabilize or come down. We were going to have to start manufacturing something (besides great cinema) and stop buying everything China makes.  We needed to go back to doing some things for ourselves and stop outsourcing every tiny fraction of our lives. 

And yet the people we trust to bring us the most current, event-changing, global happening news didn't see this coming?  Really?  Or did some reporters see it happening and were told not to report on it because it was a downer?  (It really grinds my choobies when people complain that the news is only bad stuff. Well folks, when good news starts being the thing that's so different that it is the news, we have a whole lot more problems than Wall Street shenanigans.)

Are we all at fault for being greedy and everyone wanting to live the life of a Rockefeller?  Or is it our fault because we hate when journalists really do their job and ask the hard questions?  Did we see it coming and look the other way, hoping this mess would fall into the laps of the next generation?  Or did we just trust all the wrong people?

I'm not sure I have answers for the above questions. But apparently, neither do the news outlets.  You think Wall Street's turned upside down? You're living in a country where the only dependable accountability for what's happening in people's lives and government is from a comedic parody called the Daily Show.

Memorial to Zeke

For those of you (all three of you) who read this blog, you've noticed I haven't updated it lately. I just couldn't find the willpower and stamina to even enter the page as a URL. Since losing my baby boy Zeke, I just couldn't logon and see his delightful snow-covered face looking back at me.

My friends and family have been fantastic during the ordeal. And I have been so depressed, that my good husband recently stated he'd be willing to forego any plans for travel if acquiring a new dog would bring me back to my former state of happiness. However, I know that my husband has waited a long time to enjoy such adventures and, well, I don't think it would be very fair to the new pup.

It's not because Zeke was the perfect dog. Far from it. You can't have a perfect dog without a perfect human. We had our fair share of adventures. Like the time we had a pack of dogs attack us and a total stranger stopped and stuffed us in his car. He'd had trouble with the same pack. Or the time the cat attacked him while I was out walking with my sister. And although I had seen him kill many an animal, he didn't attack back. So I intervened. And then had to cancel our trip to Vegas and take rabies shots instead.

Did I mention he killed animals? That took some getting used to. Benji didn't kill animals. He saved them. But if it were small and furry, Zeke considered it fair game. I was horrified the first few times it happened. A mouse here, a rabbit there. But my husband explained his genetics programmed him to rid the property of vermin. He was doing what came naturally.

He learned a few things that weren't natural. Like the time he had to have both back knees operated on. (I still say the mastiff who'd attacked him earlier made him rip up his ACLs, but that's a different story.) So he had to learn to pee standing on his two front legs. He also did not like gravy or peanut butter, but he would eat grapefruit and watermelon. And the guys we hired to remodel the house, they taught him to beg. He was never the same after that. He thought all servicemen/delivery guys/constructor workers were the natural bringers of good things to eat. And so we had to visit them wherever we walked.

We walked a lot. I enjoyed most going along the trails around the reservoir. Our longest walk was five hours. Not because we were enjoying ourselves, but I was lost as hell and made the mistake of asking someone for directions. She sent us in the exact opposite way we needed to go. And since Zeke had no sense of direction (at least he never knew while in a car that we were almost home), we just kept going.

Although Zeke didn't like being in a car, we dragged him up and down the East Coast anyway. We had left him at the house during one trip south and the alarm went off because of a severe thunderstorm. The alarm activated, but never sent the call to the alarm company. We don't know how long he was trapped in the house listening to thunder and the alarm, but he was never the same again. And I vowed it wouldn't happen again. So we took him with us, from Sanibel, Florida to New Jersey. He didn't like to travel, but it was easy to keep him in hotel rooms since he rarely barked. If Zeke barked, I paid attention.

Like the time I was home sick and the BGE man was coming to the house to tell me they were going to turn off the power. I'd let Zeke out to play earlier. I'm sleeping on the couch, drooling, when Zeke starts barking like a mad dog. I jump up with spittle running down my chin and my hair in 45 different places and go running outside to tell the man to stop. Now, you'd think with me looking like the Joker and Zeke baring his teeth, this idiot would have stopped in his tracks. When I finally yelled, "He will bite you!" the guy stopped. Duh.

He was a good protector but not much of a fetcher. Balls were not his thing, but small and fuzzy toys that could be de-gutted and ravaged with aplomb were. He wasn't a snuggler and preferred his own bed to sharing one with us. He wanted to be petted when he wanted to be petted, and he only tolerated affection when he didn't want it. He was an independent little guy who loved digging holes and would even chew through tree roots to get to his quarry. He was nothing if not tenacious.

But even his tenacity couldn't save him in the end. Everyone told me that I would know when it was time. And they were right. I used to tell people that he was half blind and three quarters deaf. He developed diabetes and then Cushings. And with each visit to the vet, my husband knew the end was coming, but I kept believing one more pill or one more shot could save him. One more discovered diagnosis would let me keep my Zekiewekie just a little longer. Just one more night of sharing table scraps and one more walk, even if it was just to the end of the street and back. And he tried. His very last night, I asked him to walk all the way to the back of the house so I could take his photo by the blue and white tree. I made him wear a blue Santa hat. He never liked being dressed, but he did it because I asked it of him. I knew then he wasn't going to make it to Christmas, and it was going to be a very blue Christmas indeed.

The next morning, he couldn't control the shaking and shuddering of his own body. He wouldn't eat, not even ham -- his all-time favorite food. (We'd almost named him Hambone.) He went outside to lie under they dying branches of a plant just outside the door. I asked my husband to call the vet. Even though it was time, I just couldn't muster the courage to do it.

And such a call does take courage, an unmitigated selfless courage that means you are having to release and say goodbye to someone you love with all your heart and soul. Because it's best for them. Not for you, but for them. The vet said she and a tech could come to the house since Zeke had had more than enough trips to the vet his last two months of life.

She gave him a shot to stop the shaking and let us say our last goodbye. I ran my fingers through his fur, which had become much softer the last few weeks. It's a tactile sensation I still can feel when I dream of him. And then we said goodbye. Not "Bye, bye baby, I'll be right back." Or "Be a good boy, mommy will see you when she gets home from work." But a goodbye that tried desperately to relay all the love we felt for him. And then, he was gone.

I miss Zeke. We did a lot together. Sometimes he liked it, often he didn't. He liked our long walks. He liked that we shared lunch. He didn't like the costumes I made him wear each year for the Halloween card. He didn't like that I loved to kiss him. He loved when my husband played piano, but he would leave the room whenever I sang to him. I fell over him, dropped things on him, and dragged him with me wherever I could. So the memories are all over the place.

I've finally started my firsts without him. The first time I walked around the neighborhood without a leash tethered to someone. The first time I signed a card and didn't add his pawprint. The first time I washed his bowls and didn't put them back down on the floor. The first time I went to the store and didn't go to the pet section. They are all difficult.

I once had a neighbor who loved dogs but didn't own one. She would sometimes come to the end of the driveway and pet Zeke when we were out on our walk. One day I mustered the guts to ask her why she didn't own a dog if she liked them. I thought she would mention the inconvenience or the fur or the vet costs. Instead, she answered, "They don't mean to, but in the end, they always break your heart." Now I know what she means.

Elevators and etiquette

I don't know if anyone else has seen the newest and horribly annoying Hall's cough drop TV commercial, but I'm thinking of writing Cadbury (their parent company) and telling them to keep their damn drops -- I'll be buying anything else but their brand this flu and cold season.

For those who have not seen the spot, let me provide a synopsis. A young man enters an elevator and pushes the button for his floor. On his way to his destination, other people enter the elevator (Horrors!). It seems our sloppily-dressed protagonist must share his space with others. Now mind you, as each new character enters the elevator carrying a plethora of items, our anti-hero stays glued to the center of the elevator. He does not even try to make room for others entering his space. Apparently, these other people are an affront to his desire for more room. So, he pops a Halls menthol drop in his mouth and this act is enough to plaster his spatial opponents (now in flattened formats) against the walls of the moving room. He stands smugly, still in the center, and now offers these deflated interlopers a drop.

My, but if he'd just been that courteous initially, he'd never needed to proffer his medicinal offerings. (And when did a cough drop jump from the shore of medicine to the desire for more space?)

Perhaps this commercial gets under my skin a little more than it should because of my college years. For three years, I lived in a nine story dorm. We all used the elevators frequently. The custom, at least for that part of North Carolina, was to allow all users to exit the elevator before anyone else entered. Step One in the rules of etiquette. When the elevator was unusually full, a kind-hearted soul would stay on and push the Open button until the elevator was empty and a new person could enter and resume her role. Step Two of elevator etiquette. If Step Two was not necessary, Step Three was. The first person to enter the elevator was to hold the doors open and then to enter the floor numbers as they were called while each person entered the elevator. This method provided a nice, courteous and orderly fashion to elevator ridership.

Occasionally, a non-courteous person would enter the elevator first, punch her button and then slouch to the side or stay in the center. This obvious lack of protocol would cause a breakdown in the whole system. The elevators would now close abruptly and leave everyone else waiting for the next elevator (or you could hurt yourself trying to manually stop the doors. Apparently, an electronic eye was too expensive for our institution to install.) The second worse offense would be if someone had already positioned herself in front of the button board and was taking orders upon entry. A rude person would enter and strike her needed button in the face of the person being courteous. Yes, it's rude to violate a person's space, it's rude to assume they don't speak English or understand numbers, and it's rude to assume she lacks the same manners as the offending person.

I don't want to say that such etiquette of elevator ridership exists throughout the South. I've neither lived nor visited every southern state in the union. Since Maryland is a state of mixed cultures, both courteous and rude riders share elevators often.

Displaying etiquette and kindness no longer seems to be a priority in our society. Oh, it still exists, particularly among people who know each other. But I don't want Hall's or Cadbury to push courtesy further down our list of priorities. I don't want Hall's pushing its drops on a public with a nod and wink, saying, "We know you don't want to share your elevator, your office, your town, or your country with those people. They're not good enough to share your space."

Perhaps if the young man had selected his button, retreated to the back of the elevator, and made room for the other riders, he'd still have a complete pack of Hall's menthol drops -- just in time for cold season. And I hope he gets a really nasty cold this year.

Oh my gosh! and then relief

First of all, let me say -- WooHoo! Yippee!! We ACTUALLY won!!!!! For the tiny population that reads this blog, you probably wondered why there were no updates leading up to the election. It's a personal trait my husband finds frustrating. I'm extremely superstitious. Religious? No. Superstitious. Oh yeah. I was terrified if I wrote one word saying that it looked good for Obama, I would curse his campaign forever. I just couldn't live with that kind of guilt. I know, I know. It's mighty egotistical of me to think my thoughts would have actions on the universe. But you never know, and I had to be safe and not sorry this time around.

For those who lived through the 2000 and 2004 elections, you understand my reticence. I was hoping the general population was for Obama, but I have family members who were/are terrified he'd win. Initially, I was amused at their fear. He's Muslim. Well, no. But even if he were, how would that change our lives? And I'm sorry, I just do not see Michelle donning a burka. He's a terrorist. Sorry, that's Karl Rove's department. He's going to ruin this country. My personal favorite. It's so incredibly vague that it can't be fought. Now, if by that statement you're implying that white, Protestant, straight pro-lifers won't be running the country anymore, you're right. But that's not my definition of ruining the country. I personally think that was done by the white, Protestant straight pro-lifers. And I know that some black people voted for Obama because he's black. I have no problem with that. I know some white people voted for John McCain because he's not black. Kinda works both ways, doesn't it?

However, my amusement turned to concern election night. My husband had election burnout and retired to another room. I stayed up with the remote clutched tightly, jumping from channel to channel to compare results. I was cautiously elated when Obama's electoral votes vaulted to the triple digits. And then the numbers stagnated. John McCain's projected wins started inching closer. I knew it wasn't my fault. I had superstitiously guarded my words. However, I was concerned. Not only did I not want the Republicans to win, I didn't want to think that the majority of Americans actually wanted four more years. I didn't want to live among people who thought that John McCain was stronger on national security because he'd chosen a hockey mom/pitbull for a running mate.

And then the Pacific rim rang in at 11:00 pm. Obama had won!!! And what did I feel? Happiness? For a short while. Joy? For a few seconds. And then I realized, I felt relief more than anything else. This was still my country, and it was heading in the direction that I wanted it to go. My priorities would be the nation's priorities for the next four years. The environment is now important. Diplomacy is now important. Dogs are now important! My views have been so vilified over the past twenty years, that I want to prove that my goals won't ruin the country. Just give us a chance. And maybe all those McCainiacs will see that Democrats and liberals aren't such bad people with such awful aspirations after all.

Hope and shame

After feeling pummeled by the innumerable blue and white signs touting McCain/Palin, I started feeling like we were going to have yet another four years of denied access, unconstitutional wiretaps, and bad government. I wasn't in the mood for company, but my husband and I invited over an elderly couple to join us for supper. They are wonderful neighbors, and Jack has been recently diagnosed with liver cancer. After everyone had their cocktails, we ventured into the discussion of politics (an easy feat since political ads have overrun the airwaves in NC). The older gentleman, a WWII veteran, confessed he'd been a Republican his whole life. His parents had been Republicans. He'd always supported the Republican party.

However, this year, he's thinking of voting Democrat. He doesn't like the direction the country is heading. He doesn't like how we have lost respect around the world. He doesn't like how the Republican party is running/ruining McCain's campaign. And he likes the optimism the Obama campaign offers the nation. He'd like to see the USA stand for integrity and freedom once again -- like it did when he was fighting in Europe as a young man. For the first time in his adult life, this man will enter the voting booth and vote Democrat.

What hope his words brought to me. Despite all the signs and bumper stickers, I now know that there are many more people who think like I do. And shame on me for thinking I knew how he was going to vote. Shame on me for creating a stereotype. And shame on me for doubting that hope would win this time.

The "L" word

I was watching the news this morning and heard that John McCalin is going to stress in his next debate that Obama is liberal and he is conservative. This is one liberal who wishes the "L" word was more descriptive and less pejorative.

I used to be more conservative than I am now. I cheered when Ronald Reagan was first elected (since I was too young to vote for him). I had witnessed our country lose (1) a war, (2) its standing in the world, and (3) its ability to provide energy to its own people. In case you are young and don't understand the references, we had lost and had to flee the Vietnam War, Iranian students had overtaken our embassy and held our citizens hostage, and gas lines had prevailed in the 1970s.

Americans were ready for a strong leader. We didn't like being made fools in the eyes of the world. We wanted someone who would not only be strong for us, but would strike terror in the hearts of our enemies.

Now that I am older, I look back at that notion and wonder if that is how the followers of Osama bin Laden feel. No, I'm not excusing the violence his followers use. I'm just hoping that if I changed, maybe they can, too.

What changed me? I'm not sure. I don't think it was just one or two instances. I think it was talking and listening to people who held views different from my own. I think it was reading world history and learning that we weren't always the good guys. I believe it was reading the news from another country's perspective. It was about moving beyond my "small town morals" and realizing that not everyone in the world thinks like I do or feels like I do.

I moved myself a little to the left, and then Bush 41 moved the Republicans more to the right. Where I had originally been a little right to the center, now I found myself more left. Did I move that far left or did the Republicans move that far right?

It took a while before I could embrace the word "liberal." And then I began using the word beyond politics. Would I like a liberal amount of ice cream or a conservative amount? Would I like to receive a liberal pay raise or a conservative pay raise? Would I like a liberal pharmaceutical coverage plan or a conservative one? See, when you move the word beyond politics, it has a very pleasant meaning.

To me, liberal means "more" and conservative means "less." Whereas that at one time referred to financial excesses, the present Bush administration has blown that idea right out of the water. The less in the Republican party means less able to see someone else's perspective, less able to consider an alternative to war, less able to embrace alternative energies.

I guess the McCalin/Pain ticket knows it has already lost my vote and will try to scare independents back into the conservative corral by chasing them with the liberal brand. I just hope people realize it's not the "L" word that should scare them. It's the pit bull and the tired old horse that are calling themselves mavericks, but are really a dog and pony show.