brunobaby

So the Republicans are doing at least one thing the not-old-fashioned way.

She's a strong woman. This should get interesting.

PS: Couldn't find the saturated fat content of moose burgers, but I did find a recipe for Curried Moose Burgers.

I've been spending this week checking out no-frills workout places. The one I visited yesterday was too no-frills: It was small, cramped, and two flights underground. It also seemed to be peopled exclusively by short, wide Latin guys. I may have stumbled across the training center for the Peruvian Sumo Wrestling Team.

On the agenda tomorrow is a women-only workout place that's above-ground and a bit more airy looking. I downloaded a free workout coupon.

Last night was Women's Night at the Dem Convention: Dozens of senators, governors and congresswomen in colorful pantsuits; Hillary's opening act. Hillary's pantsuit was orange. "Orange Alert!" blogged this guy.

Here's the money 'graf:

"Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for that marine...that mom with cancer...that young boy and his mom surviving on minimum wage?"

Oooh, she's good.

There were also three men who impressed: Warner, Casey and that jolly rancher, the governor of Montana.

Tonight is Hillary's hubby, who uses his tongue prettier than a twenty-dollar whore. Also Joe Biden, who's had some killer material, although twenty years ago I remember comics having a field day over some of his material being stolen.

By the way, during her speech, Hillary made a joke thanking her "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit" and then during his monologue Letterman said "They showed a film about Hillary, 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuit.'" Dave tapes several hours before 10:30 PM Eastern, which is about when Hillary gave her speech, but has been doing jokes about Hillary's pantsuits for several months. So it's Hillary referencing Dave referencing Hillary.

Update, 8:00 PM: Dang! I was out shopping and missed it. Hillary released all her delegates and Obama is the nominee by proclamation or something. That means no roll call. That's my favorite part. That's how I get to remember what all the states are.

Obama's going to give his acceptance speech tomorrow in a football stadium. So the rest of the convention's been like an infomercial for the Super Bowl.

How are the Republicans gonna top this one, launch John McCain into space dressed like a pirate? Nah, they'll probably do things the old-fashioned way; they're Republicans.

Sometimes, the old ways are comforting.

I watched the Dems on C-Span last night, so I wouldn't have to hear the commenters commenting on the commenters. I missed the way I used to MST3K the conventions with Jim.

I looked to see if Althouse was liveblogging and scrolled through the comments. I came away a few minutes later with my eyebrows scorched, reaffirming my decision not to read political blogs until after the elections.

"Oh," my inner Ann Coulter taunted, "we just want to stay in our liberal bubble where people are niiiiiice and everyone agreeeees with us!"

"No," I tried to reason with it, which is always a mistake, "the only remotely lefty blog I read is the Washington Monthly's, which is kinda wonky."

"Just keep living in your dream world and see who cries, boo-hoo-hoo, on November 5 when McCain wins."

But I didn't live in a dream world in 2004, and although I wasn't pleased with the outcome, I wasn't crying tears of shock (and awe). Like I've said, I pretty much had a foreboding of where this would be going just from watching Letterman, without having to voluntarily subject myself to The Two-Minute Hate at any conservative outlets. Or liberal ones, either...it's as if they'd thought sheer Bush hatred alone would win the election, move mountains and levitate the Pentagon.

NY1 news this morning showed a few clips from McCain's appearance on The Tonight Show last night. It wasn't his first appearance. He presented himself well. People liked him. Leno isn't Fox News; he's a pretty liberal guy with a mainstream audience.

Just being aware of these facts, even if I don't like them, is my grounding wire without having to blubber defensively to my inner Ann Coulter or to the schoolyard bullies lurking in the depths of political blog commenters...or in my own super-ego.

So tonight I'll tune in again on C-Span, which turned out to be a good choice: The cable and network news stations were all about the Obama/Clinton feud. Unfortunately, that's the convention that most Americans will have the patience for...the Gossip Girl one. But "most Americans" is the audience that's going to select the next president. And whoever that choice is, I have better things to boo-hoo-hoo about.

PS: Some intelligent explanations from said commenters here.

I'm up to the part in Nixonland about "effete and impudent snobs," which is from a speech Vice President Agnew gave in 1969. Nixon and Agnew used to play "Good Cop, Bad Cop" with the press. One of Nixon's enemies--like the Communists, the Democrats, the media, the Kennedys, Groucho Marx, you, me--would piss him off, and he'd send Agnew out to make these blistering speeches. Then Nixon would go in front of the TV cameras and come off as this conciliatory, avuncular guy.

Agnew was Nixon's pit bull.

Dick Cheney picked himself for vice president. He was his own pit bull.

So now Obama's picked Joe Biden to be his pit bull. Biden's actually the candidate I supposedly agree with most on the issues, according to yet another one of those online quizzes I took a few months ago when the candidates numbered in the double digits. I was surprised and disappointed, because I figured there was no way in hell he'd get the nomination: Like Howard Dean, he's a loose cannon with a big mouth, but unlike Howard Dean, he's a hawk and would never rally the base.

The fact that I'm going around writing stuff like "rally the base" means it's time to stop reading political blogs. In a presidential election year with the Democratic Convention starting tomorrow. As if.

BTW, there was a record entitled "Effete and Impudent Snobs" by a band called Cows back in 1990.

Fun personality test. (H/T Eclecticity.)

You called?

In addition to being Cougars, middle-aged women can now be PUMA's.

(I prefer Merrell footwear myself.)

Also...

What If Hillary and Barack Wuz Kittehs?

Not Chico. He's fine, and like Ashley, is usually home. I'm the one who called in sick this morning with a monster migraine which is now slowly ebbing and leaving hollow exhaustion in its wake.

I posted the picture of Chico so you could see what I've had to do with my couch, my beautiful leather couch that I just got three weeks ago. They've created kitty Braille all over the arms and back, so I've covered it with a canvas slipcover and some towels and throw rugs. My poor couch looks like a guy in a beekeeper suit.

I'm doing some Summer reading this afternoon, which is reminding me that I'd wanted to do some blogging on what I'm reading, and the idea is giving me a headache again, so this will wait. Also listening to one of those Internet jukebox things, and I'll blog about that, too.

Look at this. Isn't it adorable? My poor couch.

This is my new bed. As you can see, I chose the storage bed. It's very tall. I feel as if I'm sleeping on top of the credenza.

I'm storing sheets, towels and blankets in the drawers. So I'm sleeping on top of my linen closet. I'm sleeping on top of a closet, which makes me Ashley.

Chico's spending the day at the vet's for his dental, which means that once again, I'm spending the day Googling statistics for cats that died under anesthesia. Usually, it's from an undiagnosed underlying heart disease. However, any cat that could give me the workout Chico gave me this morning getting him into the carrier must be in pretty good shape.

The physical therapist who worked in the Middle East has gone back to the Middle East, and his replacement has been having me add cardio to my therapy. The nutritionist also wants me to add cardio. It's a conspiracy.

The surprising thing is, I'm actually looking forward to it the way I used to look forward to my bereavement group. Maybe this is the next step on the road to the New Normal. Maybe there should be a reweavement group, for when you're over the shock and pain and strangeness and now you want to sort things out and put together a better life.

Last week I came home from work to change and go to a party, and I had to bribe myself not to stay at home. "Look, just go for two hours and then you can come home and make salads!" It worries me that I'm more interested in broccoli right now than I am in a social life. I may end up with the social life of broccoli. But I did go and had a great time.

I was going through something similar over the dead days of winter, only then it was getting over whatever Virus du Jour was making me sneeze, cough, throw up or raise a fever. And fixing up the apartment, one little bit at a time, not so's you would even notice. Except the plumber did, when he came up to change the shower pipes.

"This place looks beautiful! I wasn't sure I was in the right apartment!"

Meanwhile, nobody had told me, "You're more interested in a lamp than you are in me! I'm not being your friend anymore." So maybe I'm still on the right track.

Update 2:30 PM: Cat fine. Pick up at six. Broccoli at 8.

Even though I haven't been blogging about anything else lately either.

I'm afraid that some conservative blogger is going to stop me on the street--'cause of course this is Bush's Amerikka and every citizen is subject to being stopped at random on the street for no apparent reason and asked about their blogs--and the conservative blogger will say:

"I notice you're not blogging about Russia. Hmmmm...your silence is deafening."

Seriously, I haven't found out much about it except it concerns a big country attacking a little country. But rest assured that when I do find out more about it, no matter what my opinion is on the subject, somebody somewhere will call me an idiot.

Uh, has anybody, like, noticed my silence lately at all?

In 1972, I had an after-school job as a cashier in Alexander's department store in Rego Park. One evening, I had a customer who could have been the inspiration for Mike Meyer's Linda Richman character. She was wearing a big pendant watch with a picture of Dick and Pat Nixon on it. This surprised me; one, because watches with pictures on them weren't as common as they are today, and two, the Rego Park/Forest Hills area had long been a Democratic stronghold in the Borough of Queens.

"That's uh...an interesting watch," I offered.

"It's President and Mrs. Nixon, may they win by a landslide in November please God." She glared and clasped the pendant to her breast as if to protect the President and First Lady from me, a Good Girl who had yet to do anything more seditious than listen to FM radio.

So who was this man who could exploit Middle America's fear of its teenagers and, even more remarkably, get Jews to vote Republican? Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America" explores the man and the era he came to define. Right now I'm up to page 66 and already I've learned how Nixon's 1952 "Checkers Speech" set the stage for Red State/Blue State-ism. A better historian than I will have to verify the details, but so far, I'm enthralled.

I'll keep you posted as I read the other 800 pages. And that watch is a collectors' item.

Blogger locked my blog for a couple of days because it suspected it of being a Spam Blog. I had to input a bunch of stuck-together letters to prove I was a real person.

Here is their explanation of "What Is A Spam Blog":

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

So there you have it: This blog is irrelevant, repetitive and/or nonsensical. So what else is new.