over the river and through the woods
You know, I had a sneaking suspicion that even this year, after all that's happened in the recent past, the democrats would still find some way to fuck it up. You think, "there's no way they could screw this up! Republicans' cache is at an all-time low! They're beset with controversies of every stripe! Even being as useless and spineless as the dems are, they still took over both houses in 2006!" And yet... they appear to be finding a way to fuck it all up. This battle for the nomination is going to destroy this party and, while I have no problem with destruction of the democratic party in general, if it means we get John "neck skin" McCain instead of Barack Obama in the White House, well...
But whatever. I think it's amazing that the best the Republican party can muster for potential nominees is one of the Bobs from Office Space (Mitt got his start as an "efficiency consultant"); a right wing nut job Southern Baptist minister who knows nothing about the world outside of Arkansas; and my grandpa. And I love my grandpa... but he thinks my name is Susan.
But that's a topic for another day. For now, I'll focus on personal events. As most of you probably know, I have recently moved back to Seattle. The immediate impetus was some family stuff I wanted to be around to help deal with; ergo, I'm living with my grandma and aunt in Mountlake Terrace for the time being. I am sleeping in the room my dad grew up in. All I can say is, I'm glad they changed the sheets.
What else. When I first got here, there were literally dozens of antique hand cranks lining all the walls of the room. My grandpa collected them. My dad has been talking about getting rid of them for 12 years. I put half of them in a big box and stuck it in the garage. I only moved the ones that were precariously stuck to a crappy old bookshelf that is suspended DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED by a couple L-joints.
Let's review: a couple L-joints; six inch wide, one inch thick, eight foot long piece of pine (by now totally bowed because of all the antique hand cranks that were stuck on it); DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED. Not to go all Dennis Miller on y'all, but it was like the frickin' hand cranks of Damocles up in here.
So it's real interesting living here, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'm still trying to figure out my role, exactly. So far it's been a lot of "fixing stuff that's not broken." My grandmother is one of those people whose first instinct is to throw something away if it doesn't work as she expects it to. She was all set to throw away an alarm clock because it didn't go off two mornings in a row... until I explained that someone had set the alarm to go off in the evening instead of the morning. And then there was the travel mug that had the wrong lid on it. I like to think that I'm doing my part to minimize land fill waste.
And I'm living with cable again, for the first time in about a year and a half... I'm one of those people who doesn't miss cable when I don't have it (except Independent Film Channel, but nobody gets that anyway) but watches it when I do. So it's a curse. The problem here is that the television is always on, so it's hard to avoid if I'm home. But I won't lie; I often hang out in the other room and watch the second television. But that's not the point; the point is that my grandma and aunt watch a lot of tv, and Food Network is the only channel we even remotely overlap on (they usually watch Hallmark). So earlier tonight there was this show about a competition where the chefs had to create a sculpture out of sugar; all different kinds of sugar. For the purposes of this story, the important thing to know is that one form of sugar they had to work in was blown sugar. I'm not entirely sure what that means because I didn't stick around to find out. I assume it's a similar process to blown glass or something. Regardless. This one guy has an idea to make zoo animals out of blown sugar, and I swear on everything that is holy to me he said the following line: "I've never blown a giraffe before. I'm interested in its head and long neck."
I have absolutely nothing to add.
But whatever. I think it's amazing that the best the Republican party can muster for potential nominees is one of the Bobs from Office Space (Mitt got his start as an "efficiency consultant"); a right wing nut job Southern Baptist minister who knows nothing about the world outside of Arkansas; and my grandpa. And I love my grandpa... but he thinks my name is Susan.
But that's a topic for another day. For now, I'll focus on personal events. As most of you probably know, I have recently moved back to Seattle. The immediate impetus was some family stuff I wanted to be around to help deal with; ergo, I'm living with my grandma and aunt in Mountlake Terrace for the time being. I am sleeping in the room my dad grew up in. All I can say is, I'm glad they changed the sheets.
What else. When I first got here, there were literally dozens of antique hand cranks lining all the walls of the room. My grandpa collected them. My dad has been talking about getting rid of them for 12 years. I put half of them in a big box and stuck it in the garage. I only moved the ones that were precariously stuck to a crappy old bookshelf that is suspended DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED by a couple L-joints.
Let's review: a couple L-joints; six inch wide, one inch thick, eight foot long piece of pine (by now totally bowed because of all the antique hand cranks that were stuck on it); DIRECTLY ABOVE THE BED. Not to go all Dennis Miller on y'all, but it was like the frickin' hand cranks of Damocles up in here.
So it's real interesting living here, as I'm sure you can imagine. I'm still trying to figure out my role, exactly. So far it's been a lot of "fixing stuff that's not broken." My grandmother is one of those people whose first instinct is to throw something away if it doesn't work as she expects it to. She was all set to throw away an alarm clock because it didn't go off two mornings in a row... until I explained that someone had set the alarm to go off in the evening instead of the morning. And then there was the travel mug that had the wrong lid on it. I like to think that I'm doing my part to minimize land fill waste.
And I'm living with cable again, for the first time in about a year and a half... I'm one of those people who doesn't miss cable when I don't have it (except Independent Film Channel, but nobody gets that anyway) but watches it when I do. So it's a curse. The problem here is that the television is always on, so it's hard to avoid if I'm home. But I won't lie; I often hang out in the other room and watch the second television. But that's not the point; the point is that my grandma and aunt watch a lot of tv, and Food Network is the only channel we even remotely overlap on (they usually watch Hallmark). So earlier tonight there was this show about a competition where the chefs had to create a sculpture out of sugar; all different kinds of sugar. For the purposes of this story, the important thing to know is that one form of sugar they had to work in was blown sugar. I'm not entirely sure what that means because I didn't stick around to find out. I assume it's a similar process to blown glass or something. Regardless. This one guy has an idea to make zoo animals out of blown sugar, and I swear on everything that is holy to me he said the following line: "I've never blown a giraffe before. I'm interested in its head and long neck."
I have absolutely nothing to add.