My local paper has the story on the hard copy front page, but I can’t find any link to it on their online version.
So, here’s congratulations to my friends Elissa Kane and Lynne Lekakis who were married by a Unitarian minister in a controversial same-sex marriage ceremony here in Albany yesterday. There’s a great photo of Elissa (with Lynne and their 9 year old daughter) holding up her arm in the power salute. I worked alongside Elissa for more than a decade and remember when her daughter was born. We got along well and got a lot accomplished because we both liked to stir things up, but we knew how to do it with political and personal style and tact. And Lynne is one of the best West Coast Swing leaders I’ve ever danced with. You go, girls!!
The online newspaper does link to Ellen Goodman’s column today, which is about all the fuss that Michael Newdow is stirring up in the Supreme Court about separating out that “under God” inserted for “Cold War” propaganda purposes and mucking up our American commitment to the separation of church and state. She ends with:
What a pain this Michael Newdow is. Who needs this in the middle of an election? Why stir up the culture wars? Why make such a big deal of two little words? Aren’t there bigger fish to fry?
Here’s the problem. God save this honorable court (oops), Newdow is right.
Hee hee. Cackle cackle. Double double, toil and trouble….. Some pots you just gotta keep stirring.

You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you’re sitting at the table
There’ll be time enough for counting when the dealing’s done
Now Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving
Is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep
Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

I say that a lot these days.
I wish I had been smart enough at a much earlier point in my life to develop some sense of self-discipline. Then I would be able to restrain myself from stirring sticks in ant hills (metaphorically, that is).
I wish I were smart enough to recognize that if angels are not treading, then I sure should keep away. That statement’s in reference to responding to group emails I should ignore and then linking to the sender, who, I should know by now, will only respond on his blog the way he always does. (No link here; no foolrushing this time. While there are times that a good verbal battle gets my juices going, this is not one of those times.)
Blogging, for many of us, is such a self-serving egocentric pastime. (I’m including myself that that reflection.)
For me, I think I blog because it’s about the only place in my life where I can be self-serving and egocentric. I sit here struggling to decide whether to take my mom to the emergency room (where she insists, in tears, that she doesn’t want to go) or call her primary doctor tomorrow and see if I can get her an appointment. She likes her doctor, who’s female and my daughter’s age, and shares with other elderly patients my (literally) sage — and successful — formula for getting my mother’s hair to stop falling out. She hugs my mom after every office visit and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Ah yes, flies with honey. Much better than ants with sticks.
I have three days of dishes in the sink and my fabric boxes are in upheaval all over my bedroom because my mom asked me to tinker with her lumbar support belt and add a piece because it was too tight. Heh. Of course, I did, and it works. These days, I am the mother of invention.
I think that some bone in my mom’s lumbar spine must have been injured somehow. With the kind of severe osteoporosis she has, all she has to do is twist and a bone could break. I borrowed a wheel chair from a friend whose mother passed away a couple of years ago, and at least my mom feels less in pain when she’s sitting it in.
What to do? What to do? No linking to other bloggers, that’s for sure.
Do the dishes while my mother sleeps. Clean up my mess. Don’t make any more. Breathe.