Something We Don't Do In Texas!

Of course, you know that  photo reminds me of Muskoka (Ontario Cottage Country) and snowmobiling and that is just part of what you will see if you tune in Greta Van Susterern's program (Part 2) with Gov. Sarah Palin tonight.  It's a little colder up there, and we don't see those hooded jackets much here in Texas.

We watched Part 1 last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. Greta Van Susterern was a lawyer and came to prominence during the O.J. Simpson Trial I, as did many others. (If nothing else good came from that, several of the players went on to prominence in other fields.)

Greta is just the person to go to Alaska to interview Sarah on her home turf.  Last night, I enjoyed watching Sarah in her kitchen in her clean business outfit with no apron. (If I am going to make something in my kitchen, I either wear casual clothes or don one of my aprons from my collection.) 

I gather that tonight we will see Moose Chili made. Last night, Sarah appeared to be skinning brats and inserting a piece of cheese, all the time not skipping a beat of the conversation. You gotta love it!

For me, I am still happy to have seen a woman of the calibre of Sarah Palin come to prominence. I do feel that she was given very little time to become familiar with national politics and campaigns.  

Now, I am waiting to see Greta on a snowmobile under Todd Palin's tutorage. Greta came from Wisconsin so this is probably not her first adventure on the machine that made us go up to Cottage Country in wintertime. 

I frighten myself when I think of me snowmobiling in the 70s. I tired quickly of riding behind my then husband. Since I had a neighbor in Barrie, Ontario who worked for Yamaha, I was able to purchase a Yamaha demo with a racing ski and had a blast with it! Snowmobiling is something we definitely don't do in Texas!

I see that the water is frozen and they will have a clear shot to go pretty fast. Tune in tonight on Fox News to see just how fast Greta can make that brute go!

I could hear dogs in the background and I think Todd also does some dog sled racing. So, he has my attention there!

If you are really observant, you might see in the kitchen, a moose ornament around the double light switches! 

When I watch, you know I always look for the obscure details!

Have a blessed day and be glad that we have fresh faces on our political scene!

Live from New York - It's Sarah Palin & Josh Brolin!

Tonight, we get to watch the real Sarah Palin along with Josh Brolin (see yesterday's blog on the movie 'W') on Saturday Night Live. Of course, the Executive Producer of Saturday Night Live is Lorne Michaels,  another Canadian who has been entertaining us for all these years! Now, if you really feel this is not for you, you can sink back and watch Texas' own Lyle Lovett on PBS' Austin City Limits.  Or, you can set the VCR! Have a great, relaxing weekend!

Joe The Plumber - Joe Six Pack - Joe Politician

I seem to recall politicians in the past at least trying to get a grasp on some real people and even in recent years, they have talked about “Ed Kowazak and his family of St. Paul, Minnesota.” They would go on to tell you about how Ed had recently lost his job because a mill had closed down, or something the audience could relate to.

Well, Sarah Palin took to talking about Joe Six-Pack and last night both Messrs Obama and McCain were apparently talking about Joe the Plumber in Ohio. (Sorry, we were at a meeting and got back about 20 minutes into the debate.)

If you have been following the story, you know that Joe’s name is not even Joe! Today, we find out that maybe Joe the Plumber isn’t exactly even a plumber!

That’s really too bad, you know. I could have introduced them to our plumber, Mike Stephenson, who has a fleet of pink trucks (because it’s his wife’s favorite color). Of course, he bought the company from Mr. Hill who just recently retired so it is called Hill Plumbing. And he really is a plumber! And he’s friendly, his prices are fair and he cleans up before he leaves.

I am not so sure we like being referred to as Joe Six-Pack! That would be Mr. Joe, the Voting Public, to you, Ms. Palin.

Do these politicians not even have people on staff to go out there and find out a little bit about people who might be interested in voting for them? Do they not think to invite these people to sit with their wives in the audience? Not too creative, Joe Politician!

New Ways for Older Folks

This morning’s AP story on Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol and the father of her unborn child, Levi Johnston makes me think. Well, it makes me think some more.

Hubby and I have been stretching our thinking for some time now, attempting to keep up with the “new ways” of the younger generation. Additionally, in the past few weeks, of course, we have the added brain strain of the current financial meltdown.

When we were young (seems like a cajillion years ago) the learning was that the Industrial Revolution had produced the most changes in the past 100 years that had ever happened.

[Lest you think I have gone a little too far in vocabulary today, I Googled it: cajillion. A number greater than any other number and close in magnitude to gazillion and bazillion.]

That was then, this is now. Even when I was a kid, I noticed that older people tended to dwell on the past and wished they would get with the current time.

Well, Hubby and I spend volumes of our time just trying to keep pace with current time and I think we do a pretty good job of it. And, of course, we spend considerable time taking care of our finances ourselves.

You probably have already figured it out that we pray extensively together every morning for our family, our friends, the nation and the world.

What we don’t do is spend enough time de-cluttering and cleaning and polishing away the dust around the house. We cannot go back to the Patty Days! You will have to read my book to learn more about our beloved Patty who became a member of our family. Patty was cleaning houses when we first knew her. She went to college and for several years now, she has been a Registered Nurse. She is a great story of how someone can improve their life. (Of course, now that she doesn’t clean our house, it is not as clean!)

As we older folks do, I digress! It is the dream of every parent and grandparent that their offspring will be happy, healthy and successful. The mistake we make is that we would very much like them to be happy and successful using the methods and milestones we used.

What Hubby and I have had to learn is that we must let the grandkids live their lives on their own terms, at their own speed and a la mode of today’s world. Once we grasped that concept, events started to fall into place and we began to enjoy the great-grandchildren and the milestones in our offspring’s lives.

Probably one thing that bothers people about Sarah Palin is that she and her family are really pretty typical of today. We must go on with our lives as we believe they should be lived and let the offspring do their own thing. They will do it anyway, so we may as well enjoy them as we see them and love them always.

Simpler times are not coming back anytime soon and it is folly to waste our golden years wishing them back.

Explaining Sarah Palin

Well, of course, they are saying that Sarah Palin is lacking in experience and saying that is because she is from an isolated and less-densely populated are. 

So, I’d like to tell you why I personally think otherwise. In Canada, there many areas falling into this category and from my travels, I know a little bit about how these people think. 

I lived most of my life in a big city (Toronto) and although I have not been up to the vast north in Canada, I can set out some reasons why actually people from places like Alaska are in fact better on top of events. 

When you live in a highly populated area, you have a long commute to and from your work. A typical Torontonian used to have about two hours total commute every day and that can only have increased now. Hubby used to carpool when he worked in Houston and also talks about the long drive. 

In big cities, there are more people in competition for jobs and elected offices. Many fine people end up “lost in the crowd”. There are more opportunities for experience in real life situations in smaller areas. 

In Canada, people in more isolated areas were more likely to have computers and got online as soon as they could. They tend to read and observe more of what is going on around them and around the world. 

In a smaller town, a person has a chance to run for office, be on various committees, serve more causes and best of all: their children get to be on sports teams! And the games are played during the day! In big cities, 4:00 a.m. hockey practices for amateurs are pretty routine! 

I am just paraphrasing, but I think Sarah Palin has had a better and more rounded life experience already than her counterpart who has been doing a long train commute to and from his job for many years. 

While watching the debate last night, I couldn’t help thinking about the Hockey Mom/Pit-bull lipstick line. Watching Mr. Biden’s body language, I was thinking he seemed he was impressed with Ms. Palin and might even vote for her! If we are going to recall our favorite dog stories, I was looking at Lady and the Tramp! 

The All-American Family - Just Like Us, only younger!

Not Much to Talk About?

Well, yesterday it was Hurricane Gustav. That was newsworthy and hurricanes tend to pre-empt other news. Especially, meteorologists get that crazed look in their eyes! This is what they live for! Junior reporters doing live remotes get their breaks (hoping to follow in Dan Rather’s footsteps)! When Gustav turned out to be gentler than expected (thank goodness), the media was left with virtually nothing to talk about today.

From first thing this morning, every network has done major features on Gov. Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy. Well, welcome to the real world, all of you!

Many families today – make that huge numbers of families -have to cope with unwed pregnancies and child-rearing of another generation of children. Many of these mothers do not marry the fathers. It is so much of a common thing, and many of us have been touched by this. Yes, it is not right, but it is fact. It’s life today. (Remember, we are no longer looking at the Cleavers as your average family: most mothers work outside the home. This is not the 50s.)

Concerning the coming Presidential Election and the non-stop coverage: let me make a couple of comments and put forth an idea.

The Presidency of the United States is without a doubt the worst job a person could apply for. I mean it! If you get to live out your term, you will come out of possibly an eight-year stint with grey or white hair, plenty of wrinkles and a furrowed brow. You will have a few less friends and influence than you had going in. Your pay will be rather low by today’s standards for top executives but you do get secret service protection for the rest of your life. (Just what everyone wants: someone tailing them to the supermarket or department store.)

As for being Vice President, well, that is a job where you pretty much stay in the background, unless of course, your President dies in office. Sometimes you would become well-enough known to run for President yourself. Of course, that could put you in the situation for as long as 16 years! Whoa!

So, perhaps a few people of enormous credentials have noticed that this just might not be the job they want.

So, when we have a few good people – true patriots who indeed are willing to sacrifice to serve their country – well, what happens?

Let me count some of the ways we knocked off some of the people willing to run. We said they were: too Mormon, too old, too Hispanic, not Hispanic enough, too Libertarian, too show biz, too female, too Black, or perhaps not Black enough . . .

So, shall we set up Gov. Palin as too human?

Some people need to sit back and think about what it would be like to have one of us in the White House. Because, it looks to me as though some of these people are indeed, one of us!

Granted, John McCain is NOT one of us. Not too many of us have gone through the sacrifices this man has, all in the name of love of country. In an era of longevity, he should not be considered old, but of course, he might have a little more money than most of us.

Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle are pretty ordinary people in a country built on immigrants and working people trying to provide quality education and good starts for their children.

Joe Biden has suffered some of the painful events others of us have suffered: widowed with young children to raise and severe afflictions and illness to overcome.

So, perhaps we have something we have not had in the past! Perhaps we can finally elect an individual who can relate to ordinary folks, who are, after all, the employers of the President of the United States of America.

So, as an employer, why not just listen and see who you would like to elect. Because, this time, you have the chance to elect one of us!

Now, is there something else you’d like to talk about?