Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Set your recorder.

I'll let you in on a little secret. I know how to not watch the political conventions. Record them on your VCR, DVD, or whatever you use to record a program. Nobody watches half of what they record. That's why people feel compelled to binge watch Netflix. Imagine having a day to do that. I'm retired and that is some of the keenest fantasy written in pop culture today.


I haplessly watched the entire Republican convention. It is my practice to read, surf the internet or play games on my computer as the television plays in the background. I have a few shows I watch. I decided I would watch the Dems do their thing since I had watched the Repubs do theirs. Sort of like rubbernecking. You know you shouldn't. It is possible you can see and hear things you don't like.

When I started blogging, I thought no politics. I haven't followed my rule. The main reason is that some are so stuck on their opinion, they are turned off when you don't agree. It's that salesperson in me or that teenager who wanted everyone to like me. Plus, deep down, I know talking politics is easy. It is not a huge perspective for any of us.

I try to straddle the fence in that I worry about being opinionated when it comes to politics. There are good points to both sides. It is hard to see that in that leaders of both sides make deals that benefit them. Those feet of clay can be pretty big some times.I chide my older brother we are going to fight old age by not having such strong opinions.

But there is a piece of me that has to be honest with my blogging friends. It is not that I want to convince anyone how they should vote. I truly believe the man upstairs has it all under control. No matter who is elected, he has it taken care of. I know that God can move mountains and certainly a person's heart.

I did not like John Boehner; because of all the discord between Congress and the President. I no longer feel that way. He was an honest public servant. With causing two expensive government shutdowns, Ted Cruz was not my favorite. I have more respect for Ted Cruz in telling Republicans to vote their conscience.

Although no one needed insurance in my immediate family; I recognize how devastating it is not to have insurance. So I have liked Obamacare from the "gitgo". No it is not perfect by any means. But it does give a large slice of our population a way to have insurance. Having to be indigent to get healthcare is not good. Plus, very few doctors will take patients without insurance.

Because of this and the refusal to acknowledge climate change, I am a yellow dog Democrat. Not everyone in my family feels the same way. I have a brother embarrassed about my political opinion. He is very grateful I keep my opinions on the down low. He loves Donald Trump. He feels he tells it like it is.

A brother and sister of mine are true independents. I had been an independent. I still vote Republican if I like the candidate better. There are six of us in all. My brother that lives with me does not vote and I have no idea how my sister that lives with me votes. I vote like my mom. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

So this is hopefully the last time I write about politics. My opinion is more in I want to be upfront with who I am. However, if Donald Trump is elected, I will respect that too. Because, the man upstairs knows what he is doing. There is a purpose to all the good and bad in our lives. We don't acknowledge the good. It is what gives us the greater part of our humanity. The bad can either enhance that or bring out the worst in us.

It's all good folks. And don't forget to set your recorder. You know you'll never watch it now. Now, I got to find a good safe topic for next week. Now let's all turn to chapter 6 in the book of John, Yikes, I guess I need to stay away from religion too.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

I always hated office politics; but come to think of it, I hate all politics.

This weekend is the big Macon Film Festival week. If I had my wish, I would go when it opened and leave at the end of the after party.

I have not traded my electronic ticket for my festival pass. I missed the Sundance Short Film training session, a Q & A with Andrew McCarthy and a viewing of "Pretty in Pink" in the Historic Douglas Theatre.

I always do something for my house each day. I do not avoid it at all costs. So after I took my sister to the doctor, I planted four plants and mopped the floors. Plus Thursday is garbage day and the dogs got two extra walks in. I decided to skip the Sundance session. That was OK. I would do water aerobics.

My sister is pretty perturbed and informs me the house was 83 degrees. Mom with her blood thinner, and me with my cold nature, it felt pretty good. But the air conditioner was not working correctly. I turned it off and tried to reset it to no luck. I pick my brother up where the bus drops him off. I come home, my sister and even my mother is in a state about the air conditioner. My sister intones it is 87 degrees.

I had the dehumidifier working. I cranked up the AC with the unit for my end of the house. I shut the power off at the circuit breaker and turned it back on. We've had a lot of electrical storms. I am replacing the thermostat when the heat and air is serviced this fall. Good news is the AC is back on.

Afterwards, my mother is on her walker telling me if it needs fixing, she has a checkbook. This from the woman who complains constantly how cold the house is. The temperature is now 80 degrees. It was 92 when my sister told me it was 87.

I did not tell my sister it was a dry heat. She and her dog are in her room with the door closed. It must be cool enough for her.

I wound up not being able to go to the Q & A, the movie or after party. So I took my brother out to eat. We ate at Red Lobster. I know the food is supposed to be good and it was. I am not a big chain food lover. My preference are locally owned restaurants. There is a blandness to mass production.

That extends to my reading preferences, I no longer reach for any bestseller. Usually, I read my blogging friends and writer acquaintances and the stories are richer and have more color to them. This is why I love the film festival. You get to watch so many films that would never be shown on television or Netflix.

At the moment, I am watching a huge fairy tale, the Republican National Convention. All politics on this level have a "lala" level of reality in my opinion. The Democrats will serve up their version of Utopia if they get voted in during their convention.

I have decided to vote for Hillary. I can't vote for Donald Trump. Not because of the negative press and his opinions. It is the race issue. He is so polarizing to black America. We are all so ready to implode over race relations. Frankly, I don't think politicos have that much freedom and will do about the same thing. They will just call it different names. Being a military brat, the Pentagon will have a "come to Jesus" meeting with Trump and he will follow in line. They can be persuasive.

What bothers me the most about the election is the divisiveness. There is a lot of truth to united we stand. Somehow, people have lost their ability to have "float" which is the ability to tolerate different opinions. Is it realistic to have the my way or the highway approach to life.

My dad talked about the poverty of the Great Depression. They made it. It was horrible. But they survived. We will too. Hopefully it will not be like the Great Depression. But we do need to stop with our belligerent opinions. We are destroying something more precious. Our love and cooperation with one another.

Even though, I don't care for Trump's speech. Hillary Clinton is going to do the same thing. I think I will change the channel. I plan to put a few more posts in this weekend. I love the film festival. But I forgot how much I hated office politics. I loved the start of a new job where you were oblivious to it all. Now I know, I just hate politics.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Snoozing on Sundays

Working to gain followers on twitter has been my goal this week. It is easier than writing my novel and requires no housework. I have a lot of good books to read. I woke up with a low grade cold Sunday morning. Our Sunday dinner was just us with no guests which takes a bit of fun out of it. But I did not want to share my cold which was short-lived. The worst part was I couldn't do any yard
work which I love to do.

I've yet to find what the joy of twitter is. It is like the penny pincher gazette with a myriad of ads. Everyone is selling their book. I've gotten so many direct messages of free books, like me on Facebook, validate yourself on true twitter, offers to increase my followers, offers to perform miracles for me of a literary nature.

And all I got was a slap on the wrist. I was busy deleting followers who did not follow back. Some of them were very unrelated to me. My thought with twitter was why follow someone if they had no interest in me. I understand why all the celebrities on SNL did not follow me back. Anyway, I could not follow people for awhile due to my massive deletion of about 300 people.

I looked up the reason why, they frown on people churning their accounts for followers. Well I was churning. A few people I blocked due to the fact they are porn. But anyone that followed me, I followed. Meanwhile in the back of my mind was the fact that I am able to follow people I have no knowledge of and I may not like them. Add to that, they might not like me. Luckily the 140 character limit allows me to understand a few Spanish and couple of French folks that followed me.

My blog visitors were up. Apparently some want to check you out when you begin to follow them. So, if my goal was to have a higher readership of my blog, I could do a mess of liking. I have heard you can like 500 people in one days. I may have hit that threshold.

I remember when I first started twitter. Some stranger would follow me and I would carefully check them out. Now, if there is no sexy woman, no mention of BDSM, fetish, no politics like "X stinks and is an idiot, party affiliation is fine, I will follow them back. Sometimes they are sneaky, one innocent looking twitterer constantly recommended some pretty dirty books with their not so tantalizing passages. It is great to not be young in that you truly could care less, the curiosity is gone.

My beef is that occasionally I would get a follow by someone with a huge amount of followers in the past. Then after I followed them back, they unfollowed me. So ---

I also played with their ads. I got 12 followers. Of that 12, some of them were spammers. But I got close to 650 by churning.

Anyway, I got an audience. The bulk of which is preoccupied with selling me their book. But tomorrow, I start my first regular tweet which will be front yard Friday. I've got to cook up some themes. Sell you something Sunday will not be one.

Now Sunday snoozing may be a little accurate for some. I don't know if it is a Baptist thing, but, taking it easy on the Sabbath was taken seriously. I remember the raging debate when I was a kid about working on Sunday. Old blue laws were being repealed. Then the preacher got up and said if the Lord gives you a job on Sunday, thank him for the work. Being proud you had a job was the norm.

But I'll have to find a better one for Sunday. The Chihuahuas are particular about unflattering pictures. Besides, I got to get a hang of the hashtag thing.


Thursday, July 7, 2016

Friday or Not

It's almost Friday and I don't have a pearl of chat to write up. This is even more pertinent in that I wrote a downer last week. Yesterday, I had a fantasy of a stand-up routine of a former teacher.

In Georgia, lawmakers have on more than one occasion discussed teachers having weapons in classrooms. We made incredible progress in Georgia but legislators have been busy improving the system. So education is taking a predictable nosedive.

This makes me think of a class that would take the teacher's Skinny Dip perfume out of her purse and spray it all over the room. The teacher would wake up and inquire who took her Skinny Dip. This was 1969. Supposedly she was drunk was the story. I never noticed her drunk and made an A in her class.

I cannot remember the subject of the class but I can tell you we sat down and talked the entire hour in our assigned seats of course. Any classwork was welcome to break the boredom. We got a magazine thing every few weeks. You could hear a fly buzz we were so occupied reading that thing and doing the crossword in the back.

I didn't allow kids to talk in the classroom. Imagine a kid that would not stop talking. The teacher would pull her gun and flip back the trigger and boom. I told you to stop talking!

The teacher would calmly push the Public Address system in the room and request the custodian to clean up the vomit from a few of the children and the school nurse with smelling salts for the student who thought they were the target. Those kids would be quiet. That is what shock can do for you.

What the custodian had been shot! You mean your warning shot had gone into the storage closet at the exact moment he was retrieving paper towels and liquid soap for the girls room.

You know they weren't delivering them to the boy's room. Yesterday, the boys flooded the bathroom with paper towels in the sink and emptied the soap containers. Every male in the school would enter and glide from wall to wall. The custodian caught the young history teacher gliding with his students and sent them all back to class.

I had tried to stop telling people I was a teacher. I retired in 2007 and 2010. At this point, I doubt I could control a class of children. Slack would not be the word for my approach. I can now sleep sitting up for about five minutes. I sort of know why the window of opportunity opened for the Skinny Dip caper.

But one time during a teacher work day, I jumped and hit the top of a high doorway like the kids. Those same kids who were told not to do that. On landing, I see another teacher. She just laughed at me. I can understand the history teacher gliding with the kids.

Despite the efforts of the legislature and the six gun salute curriculum that just happens to be exactly like that horrible common core curriculum and tests that evaluate whether teacher's cheat and whether students happen to know whatever hit the fancy of the governor, the kids are alright and the teachers are most days. But please, don't give them guns.

And some of this is made up. Hey, who stole my Skinny Dip?



Look out A to Z, I'll be back.

 A to Z theme reveal. Well this theme is pretty weak. It is Dogs I have loved, fairy tales, myths, cats birds and what grows in my yard...  ...