Here’s a tidbit from Blogblah!!! on August 10, 2006:

In Iraq, authorities have a new security plan.  Turns out the “plan” is a re-run of a failure from last year: taking on Mahdi al-Sadr’s Shiite militias, this time in Baghdad instead of in smaller southern towns.  Is there any miscalculation or mistake that this administration hasn’t made in Iraq?

Personally, I’m thinking about putting together a web contest to decide who is more incompetent:  Condi Rice or Don Rumsfeld.  Dead heat at this point, if you ask me.

And this surge is different from “Stay the course” in just exactly what way?

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight.  Sadr kicked our ass from one side of the border to the other in a series of small town fights south of Baghdad and that helped him become big stuff in Baghdad itself.  Then, we took it to him in the streets of the city and now there’s civil war and he’s pulling the strings on Maliki because he’s got the largest bloc of votes in the Parliament. 

Why am I having visions of Hitler in his bunker in Berlin, ordering about non-existent divisions of Panzer tanks?

Has anyone said the word “Stalingrad” to “W”?  How about “Dienbienphu” or “Hue”?

If you think American prestige abroad is as low as it can get, just wait until the television cameras catch sight of long lines of civilian refugees headed for Syria and Jordan and Kuwait, panicking at the airport and at train and bus stations.  Will these guys be satisfied when we’ve sacked the city, left it a hulking ruin?  Will we assault neighborhoods with tanks and artillary and jets and helicopters? 

Just exactly how do they plan to stop Iranian and Syrian and other “foreign fighters” from getting involved?  Will they “spread the chaos outward” to full scale military confrontation with Iran?

Tell me somethin’, punkin.  Tell me of any knowledge you have of any good experience any nation has had at attempting what President Bush proposes?  Know of any assaults on milita/irregular forces imbedded in a city of a million plus residents that actually worked?

We are so fucked.

Now, let me drone on  some more about how incompetent these bastards also are in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda has been welcomed into the arms of their Pashtun breathren in Waziristan north to Khyber.

The government of Pakistan will not go in there and I don’t blame them.  Some 50,000 British troops weren’t able to pacify that country back when the island nation knew something about colonizing brown skinned countries.  Some of the British forts are now Mahdrassas for the teaching of new Islamic radicals.

The opium crop is bigger than ever and we’ve managed to piss off Iran and have no support along that border.  As a result, the Taliban has spread from the south to the west and Kabul, as has happened with 5 previous conquering empires, is becoming increasingly isolated and unsafe.

Of course Iraq is sending hundreds of suicide bombers to the training camps of the terrorists, who are increasingly rich, sophisticated and dispersed into impenetrable cells.

We are so fucked.

From the mideast to the Indian subcontinent to the far East: North Korea has the fucking bomb and we can’t do a thing about it even when they test missles.

We are so fucked.

Did anyone else notice that while we’re planning a surge, the British think they will bring some of the boys back home?

When Bush’s poodle has had enough, goodness!

And people say spelling isn’t important…

So far, I’m having a holly jolly ice day, how ’bout you?

Went to Albertson’s last night around dinner time and OH MY GOD what a clusterfuck!

There must have been a thousand people there, half of them in line waiting to be checked out.  The parking lot was freakin’ full to the brim.  It was truely unbelievable.  It took me 30 minutes to shop and 45 minutes to get through the line with my frozen foods defrosting.  There were huge gaps in the shelves where they couldn’t be stocked as fast as people were grabbing at odd things like lunchmeat and chips.  I saw a guy buying 10 gallons of bottled water.  Like it was the end of the world.  I hear that if you listened to Gary England, you might have thought it was the next ice age, if not Armageddon.  I would have waited and gone at midnight to Wal Mart had I known, but Oh, well.

I did get all my other errands done with dispatch, however, and the dry cleaning is picked up/dropped off, I have firewood and a full tank of gas and some cash from the bank and the corkscrew to replace the one I broke Christmas Eve.  I’ve rented four great comedies: Airplane, Big, Ferris Beuller’s Day Off and Groundhog Day.  Doesn’t get any better than that.  I’ve also got Annie Hall and a couple others in reserve out of my private library.  No thoughtful films this weekend, only the light touch.

There’s an absolutely brilliant fire crackling in the fireplace and I have my whole computer library playing on shuttle and that’s a good couple days worth without repeats.

I’ve got hot chocolate, tea, coffee beans and those tiny little marshmellows.  Muaaahhhhahahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!!

I did my crumbled bread out the back door trick again and Sinatra is pleasantly occupied.  He says it’s much more interesting than television, and I agree.

I’ve got all the good stuff done like opening the cabinets underneath the sinks and covering the outside faucets.

I’ve even got a sack of rock salt if it gets absolutely necessary.

There are 10 gallons of bottled water in my storm shelter.

It’s the end of the world, you know.

A Bird Pooped On My Head

Although Jesse  and I are both unemployed, we managed to swing a new Mac Book and a shiny  red Jeep. After using my new Mac Book to finish a laborious proposal to  fund the position I wish I had and then jumping in the shiny red Jeep with  my recently heroed husband, a bird pooped on my head. And here I go again  with my fantasy/reality struggle.

In the fantasy, a bird poops on your  head and it..s good luck. The reality is that you have to wash your  recently ..done.. do. What..s lucky about that? The fantasy of the shiny  red Jeep with the top down is pretty much busted at that point too. The  promise of employment and a flashy computer fade into oblivion once a bird  poops on your head.

Not long ago, Jesse and I witnessed a maintenance  wife in her shiny black Cadillac Escalade. On every level, a well-coiffed,  well-appointed trophy wife is the ultimate fantasy for both men and women.  The reality is that she was driving with Playtex gloves on to protect her  manicure from the inky residue of the papers she was slinging out the  window of that shiny black Cadillac Escalade.

What a cruel joke. God  gives us everything we ask for and then we ask for more. ..Ask, and it  shall be given you… For every one that asketh receiveth… Or what man is  there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he  ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?.. (Matthew 7:7ish if I must proof  text). In His infinite wisdom, He imbeds karmic contingencies for which we  did not plan.

I get it. I..m a parent. I want to indulge my children.  Even so, sometimes my spoiled kids insist they can go to school without a  coat and I comply only for them to realize that the tank-top/sandal option  isn..t all that comfortable when it..s cold outside. I allow them to find  out for themselves that a moment of sunscreen in the eye is preferable to a  blistering burn. But, come on, God. Give me a break. How about this? I  accept the nomination to Vestry and you give me a full-on fantasy with no  caveats for no less than time served.

Oh, crap. Did I just bring  about a new contingency? Shit. Why did Jesus command me to ask when he knew  how tricky his dad is? Seriously, asking things from God has to be harder  than being president. Maybe that..s how Bush got himself in so much  trouble. Maybe Bush got caught up in his fantasies and the collateral  damage resultant of his askething bit us all in the ass. Okay, having a  bird poop on my head isn..t as bad as starting a civil war.

Gee, folks, I’d just absolutely LOVE to write something pithy and insightful about President Bush’s address to the nation about Iraq, but I didn’t see it and I just can’t.

Besides, I’m too distracted with worry right now about the really big issue facing America:  Will Rosie and The Donald ever make up?

Donald attempted a surge by putting it in writing and sending Rosie a letter.  I’m not sure he anticipated that this would be met with Barbara Walters denying part of The Donald’s statements.

Then, Barbara called him a poor, pathetic man.

And got a high five from Rosie.

In the whole show, they never said his name.

Now, he’s being all snarky about Barbara, saying it was sad to see her reading her statement off a cue card.

And, somehow lost in all this is the fate of that poor girl who was supposed to be a pageant queen and then got drunk and rowdy like 20 year old girls are never supposed to be like and then Donald, who owns the pageant, let her off the hook.  So, where’s she now?  Rehab, maybe?

See how hard it is to keep up with all the details of this story?  And, who will solve this mess?  I propose that we bomb a bridge.  Isn’t that where “trump” is a real word, the card game “bridge”?  It’s the center stage of the Global War on Celebrity Bitchslaps.  Hey, it worked for W!

Or, better yet, we can get some gay person, the bipolars or whatever they are, and they could go out on an Elimidate with Donald, Rosie and Barbara.  Except Rosie is already gay, so I don’t know how that will all work out.  But, they could go out to a park and then on an activity and then dancing in a bar and the bipolar person could Elimidate two of them and then we’d know who won and all.

Wouldn’t that be cool?

My baby sister writes to ask what’s wrong with me that i’m not blogging.

What gall!  She gives up her blog completely and then has the cojones to ask why I’m not blogging.

OK, sis.  I understand.  Here’s why I’m not blogging:

I have nothing to say.

I went to dinner last night with K.O., an old friend, and we talked about her latest failed romance and how she wants to just quit her job and leave town.  I was home and eating Blue Bell Ice Cream and chocolate chip cookies in front of the laptop before midnight.

Thursday, I slept.  I slept 20 hours.  Didn’t go to work, didn’t do the dishes.  I slept.

Nancy Pelosi is the new Speaker of the House. OK. Cool beans.  I have nothing to say that about a thousand other pundits, journalists and coffeehouse philosophers haven’t already said in spades to my utter boredom.

I’m not dating anyone, not trying to date anyone, not looking and don’t care.  I finally get it.  At my age, there isn’t anyone I want to date who wants to date me and there isn’t anyone who wants to date me that I want to date.  I don’t want to share my home with the cat, much less another human being of any gender.

I’m trying with very little success to stop smoking.   Very frustrating and disappointing.

I work.  It’s boring, but that’s why I get paid the big bucks.  I’m not getting anywhere financially, but that’s better than the path to financial ruin I was formerly treading.  Now, I”m just treading water.

Friday, as is often the case, i spent time with a gaggle of friends.  It was Paseo gallery walk night and it’s boring to say how much I admire B.J. LaFon’s work I saw at Joy Reed Belt’s JRB Gallery.  He’s still great.  I’m still a fan.  Who isn’t?  The one wrinkle in that evening was an hour a few diehards spent at Groovy’s late.  A walk through a time warp into the Studio 54 days of yesteryear’s discos. None dead, none hurt, and the Oz will dance all by himself like no one is watching, one of the reasons I love him to death.

I’m not reading anything that excites me.  I’m not writing, not even in my journal.  I’m not painting or doing sumii, not even sketching. 

I go to AA meetings and listen and keep my mouth shut.  I don’t have anything to say, but I’m not learning all that much,  either.

I had some rolls I used for a Christmas Eve get-together at my house, but they’ve long turned stale and are probably getting moldy.  I crumbled a couple up outside my back door for the birds, it being winter.  I didn’t gauge the effect this might have on Sinatra.  When a flock of small black birds swarmed the crumbs right outside his window to the world, he freaked.  he did that stutter that cat owners will recognize.  he’s been talking about it ever since.  I guess that’s the big news at my house:  there were birds real close to the back door and the glass kept the cat from pouncing.

So, that’s the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the men … 

MCARP makes reference over on 3:40 a.m. to his “Bathroom (sic) of Perfect Wisdom.”  I was going to leave a snarky comment about how he must certainly mean his grandiosely named BathROBE of Perfect Wisdom.  Then, I got to thinking and decided bathrooms are actually more likely than bathrobes to be the repository of perfect wisdom.  It’s all a bunch of crap going down the tubes, after all.  I know that the only way I’ll ever be one with the universe is when the universe needs to go to the bathroom more than it wants sex and food and money.  The humanity of that urgency is so primal as to necessitate a certain amount of wisdom.  Plus, it’s one of the few times we’re alone and allowed to contemplate the nature of the universe uninterrupted by the demands of the world outside.  Felicitous Freudian slip there, MCARP.