maven&meddler

Did everybody have a great Thanksgiving? Sometimes I think that if you simply survive a holiday with your sanity intact and a full belly, it’s a great one. I keep wondering if I’ll ever meet that perfect family that has no ‘issues’, they all tolerate each others viewpoints and treat each other with dignity and respect. There are no toxic members of the tribe. Everybody laughs off the fluffs and ‘disasters’ as something to put in the collective scrapbook of family memories. And, most unbelievable of all … these wonderful people are the ones we’re actually related to by birth.

More often it seems like the truly special people are not connected to us by genetics, but rather by choice. It may not be ideal, but I’ll take it gladly. With thanksgiving, I’ll celebrate those special persons who are passing through my life quite by accident.

Here are two: 

Ronnie and Jack were supposed to be hosting the festivities this year, but she fell and really hurt herself, and he’s not been doing well. So, at the last minute I did the cooking and we took food over to their house.

Now you can get all annoyed by falling down and be a complete pill  over how unfair life is…  

Or you can decide that stuff happens, and your friends will bring a nice dinner to celebrate …

Which elicite hugs and warm feelings … 

And just party on …

Celebrate the great people who are in your life, and try to survive the others.

I have a new plan for the rest of the holiday season. It may go further, but I’m in the testing phase, so let’s just see.

When I’m in Winco, which is about once a week for the basic items that I don’t need to pay top buck for over at Whole Paycheck, I’m going to look around and pick somebody. Maybe that Latina mom that looks real tired, with a couple kids. Or, the working guy with calluses on his hands and too many miles under his belt.

I going to slip by the cashier and quietly hand her a ten or a twenty, and tell her to put it toward their bill. And slip quickly and quietly out.

I’ve been experimenting with this over the last week. It’s felt real good. I know it’s going to people who are trying, and not to drugs or alcohol.

Here’s a question that I don’t have an answer to: Why are there still smart, compassionate people who would bristle at somebody else using the words ‘nigger’, ‘spic’, ‘wop’ and get their knickers in a twist at ‘bad language’ but will use the word ‘queer’?

Just wondering.

Re: health care reform as it winds its way through the Senate. I might … and emphasize ‘might’, be willing to compromise on a trigger or opt-out on the public option, only if (BIG IF) those on the opposing side declare they’re okay with bringing the health insurance companies out from the rock they’ve been hiding under and take off the anti-trust gloves. You know, compete on a level playing field more or less.

I’m not holding my breath. It seems like all the compromises are expected to be made by progressives, and over the parts that would actually help the the ‘us’ rather than them.

I know I’m real tired of it. Aren’t you?

Re: the self-absorbed, needy, attention starved couple that crashed the White House state dinner. Can you imagine anybody being that desparate? Can you imagine the Secret Service being that out to lunch?

Re: Dubai’s economy going into the toilet. After they’ve rubbed everybody’s nose in their success, isn’t this current state of affairs rather delicious? Seems like greed on a massive level can make you just as likely not to see the oncoming choo-choo train as those cocksuckers at Goldman Sachs. I’d be laughing harder if it weren’t for the effect it’s having on the markets in general.

Re: Healthcare reform and a ballooning national debt. Why is it that the same teabaggers who are so afraid of leaving a massively obscene debt for their grandchildren, don’t have the same objections about the massively obscene debt being piled up for crap nobody needs over at the Pentagon, for two wars that are only being fought to get American oil companies first in line for Iraqi crude… and who knows, maybe Iranian crude. Doesn’t that seem, well… massively hypocritical?

Read Alec Baldwin’s insightful blog on Huffington Post.

Here’s a bright spot you might have missed : Obama is showing any registered lobbyist who is serving on any federal advisory board to the door. And don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported that the move “may turn out to be the most far-reaching lobbying rule change so far from President Obama,” resulting in “hundreds, if not thousands, of lobbyists” being ejected from federal advisory panels.

Not surprisingly, lobby groups, corporations, and other K Street influencers are up in arms.

Shucks. I’d feel for them but I can’t quite reach them.

Well, I didn’t go bargain hunting today. And, I won’t be going tomorrow either. The last time I got up for Black Friday bargains was about 20 years ago but since the retailers probably didn’t miss me, it simply proves that P. T. Barnum was right.

So, have a great weekend, and please add your Thanksgiving good story/bad story to the end of these posts. One one person, besides yours truly to share so far.

I’ll let myself out.

maven