I hope all you pansies who complained about the weather are satisfied. The top is up on the Miata and that’s a shame. Shame on you pansies. Soon, you’ll complain about your ONG bills and the costs of heating your McMansions in Edmond, just like you complain about the $3/gal gas prices. Do you really think that high gasoline prices won’t lead to higher home heating bills? Hope the dry cleaning bill for your sweaters and woolens puts you in the poorhouse. Hope your kids have runny noses and ear blockages. Hope you slip on the ice and break your hip. Bastards. Sons of bitches. Whooors. Asswipes. Soon, you’ll be thinking 60 degrees is balmy and looking forward to the least bit of sunshine, all of which you had in abundance just 36 hours ago. This is NOT a happy blogger. This is one pissed off ragtop owner.
Wednesday Night Dinner and Movie
The crowd that meets on the Paseo Wednesdays was cramped inside and sparse due to the weather, although a solid 10 of us went to dinner together.
On the basis of a recommendation by Brian the chef we went to a Mexican restaurant on Britton Road, but the comments I heard were not generally favorable. In fact, the sentiment was that Brian would never again be trusted to pick the spot we eat.
On the other hand, I showed “Sin City” at my house afterwards and the general feeling was that it was well worth the $10 I spent on the “previously viewed” DVD at my local Hollywood Video store.
Having seen and enjoyed the movie more than once before last night, the big deal for me was getting to snuggle with Button, a late arrival who slipped in and shared my chair next to the door. She’s such a terrific young woman and I am SO shut out that any little thing is a big deal for me. I’d almost rather be told anything other than “Let’s just be friends”, but I don’t always get to choose what I’m told by women I admire.
Corrupt Corporate Cronyism
I’ve been waxing eloquent about Majority Leader Tom Delay, mentioned the SEC problems of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Valerie Plame problems of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, the White House spy revelations, the illegal propaganda of the Bush Dept. of Education, and the curious choice of Harriet Miers for the U.S. Supreme Court, but all of that may soon fade into obscurity compared to another Washington scandal: Jack Abramoff, lobbyist extraordinaire. Yeah, I know you’ve never heard of him. Here’s the bare bones: Tom Delay and other GOP leaders have set up a lobbyist heaven and corporate interests often use their access to GOP lawmakers to simply write the bills that Bush will sign into law. Jack Abramoff was a kingpin in their system, raising money and spending it in all the right places for GOP purposes and getting federal law written exactly in the way his corporate clients wanted them written. As these things always go, Jack got a little lax about the rules in his hubris. He was untouchable, protected by powerful Congressional friends and White House contacts. Except now that federal investigators have indicted one of his principal minions, who is “cooperating” in the investigation (that means he’s ratting out everyone he can think of). When the indictments start coming down, watch out. Some of what has been going on in the past six years looks and smells like outright bribery, but probably does just skirt that law, although perhaps not all the election finance laws. GOP lawmakers are likely to go down like bowling pins, one knocking the other down in the melee. Assuming that action comes within the next year, 2006 might be a year of “sea change” in Congress because the ideological and social conservatives are also splitting into factions that cannot withstand a “reform” mood of disgust in the populace when faced with so many indictments and charges. Hard to blame Dems for this since they are so out of power that they can’t influence political witchhunts like the GOP could under Clinton. When you add in $3/gal gasoline, high heating costs, the disappointing results we’re getting in Iraq, cronyism in FEMA that led to a Katrina disaster, and the list goes on… Except I forgot that the Democrats are even more stupid and disorganized than a high school sorority. Nevermind.
The Pink Lady
In the middle of the last century, an unknown war veteran named Richard M. Nixon ran for Congress against a New Deal Democrat named Helen Gahagan Douglas. Throughout the campaign, Nixon called this patriotic American “The Pink Lady”, implying that she wasn’t quite a communist, but darn close. He won the election with this unfair tactic and went on to become a right-hand man and protege of Sen. Joseph “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy of “McCarthyism” fame, some of which you youngsters will find out more about if you see the new George Clooney movie about this demogogue’s demise.
Well, Oklahoma City has its own Pink Lady.
She’s my tobacconist and a heck of a woman. She’s young and beautiful (ordinarily) and has a razor sharp wit and vital intelligence. I simply adore her. Too bad she’s so young and I’m so old. (What, you need another woman in your life? What does it take? Shut up! No, you shut up! All the voices in my head need to shut up, I’m trying to write. I’m scared. You can’t tell your mother to shut up, you bad boy. Really. All of you need to shut up so I can write. I’m putting you in “time out” now. NO NO NO NO NO. I mean it, shut up and shut up right now! Sorry. OK.)
Anyway, she’s having an allergic reaction to something and it’s turning her pink. I saw her at the Tobacco Exchange and bought some import smokes from her and she’d written something on her hand to remind herself to do something to help with this medical condition and I suggested that perhaps a note on paper would have served her better. She assured me a paper note would do no good and that a message on her hand would be effective. I saw her this a.m. at the Red Cup and she’d forgotten to get her stuff and, she reported, she had become even more pink.
So, when you see the tobacconist with the pink skin around town, just call her The Pink Lady. She’ll know you read my blog.