So we watched another widow movie entitled Smart People with Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, that girl from Juno and Thomas Haden Church. I really don’t know why I like widowed people movies so much – the comedy ones in particular. Perhaps it is because I equate my experience as a dramedy rather than a Lifetime Movie for Women. I had as many up and really surreal and satirical moments as I did sad grief-drenched ones. Read Full Article
Meme ideas
Except I was never cool. I was so uncool that as a teacher I took to telling my students that I was above cool. That’s how distant a relationship I have had with being cool.
I found this list over at Mad Hatter ages ago and thought it might be worth a meme.
In the 1970’s
I listened to Casey Kasem’s Top Forty Countdown every Sunday afternoon without fail.
I wore “husky” sized pants from J.C. Penney’s.
I played with Barbies and married them off to my brother’s G.I. Joe’s.
I rode the Schwinn banana seat bike I got for my 7th birthday until I was in junior high and my knees hit the handle bars. I loved that bike to the point I had to be pried from it.
I stuffed envelopes for Jimmy Carter during the 1976 election campaign.
I walked everywhere I didn’t ride my bike, so the oil embargo thing didn’t affect me much that I can remember.
I was too fat to wear a halter top.
I was too young to go to disco’s.
I read Rich Man, Poor Man because I wasn’t allowed to watch the mini-series, which was probably a lot less racy.
When I could finally drive, my car was a 1972 Dodge Dart.
In the 1980’s
I graduated from high school and then university.
I never voted for Ronald Regan.
I thought Madonna was a slut.
I cut the neckline out of my sweat shirts and chopped off the sleeves even though I never saw FlashDance or even liked the soundtrack.
I loathed aerobics.
I watched Dallas but not Dynasty.
I was a Santa Barbara fan after I gave up on General Hospital.
I watched Luke and Laura get married but not Charles and Diana.
I drove a 1976 Plymouth and then a 1986 Ford Tempo.
I moved away from home and never really looked back.
In the 1990’s
I survived the Midwest Flood of ’93. Two weeks without running water.
I traveled for the first time in my life to NYC and Washington D.C.
I bought my first house.
I wrote my first novel.
I met and married my first husband.
I ran, lifted weights, kick-boxed, earned a black-belt in Tae Kwon Do and coached girls’ basketball.
In the 2000’s
I became a mother and then a step-mother.
I lost my husband to a progressive illness.
I met and married my second husband.
I emigrated to Canada.
I retired from teaching.
I became a writer.
I got published for the first time.
I wrote another novel.
I took up Yoga.
I quit watching television.
I took up blogging and befriended a world of virtual people.
I drove a Chevy Malibu and then an Avalanche and Equinox.
I am still not cool.
What about you?
Rob reminds me that Barack Obama is merely the president-elect, but I prefer to get a jump on washing the bad taste of the Bush years out of my mouth by speculating on what our new president has in store for us.
I think Obama has been wise in reminding all Americans in his recent speeches that we are in for a period (years is my guess) of hard work and sacrifice. Neither of these things are something that anyone under the age of sixty has much personal experience with frankly. We are a sorely untested and sorry bunch. A nation of whiners is how I believe Phil Gramm put it not too long ago. He was criticized for that, but he was right.
So what are we willing to do for our country, for a change?
Since I am already of the generation that can’t receive full retirement benefits until I am 67, I think I can put it off until 70 or even 71. My own mother, after all, is 76 and still works full time without much trouble to tell the truth. I am also certain I can do without sweetners to get me to vote and stay positively engaged in the political process. Things like tax cuts and credits that incumbents seem required to promise and deliver on anymore. I am willing to pay more in usage taxes to fund programs to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, especially if those programs provide much needed jobs for unskilled as well as skilled workers. Ditto for education. We can’t afford marginally educated people. And I am willing to listen to and thoughtfully consider whatever master plan the new president comes up with for re-regulating a society that has been allowed to indulge in excess for too long.
What about you? Ask what you can do for your country perhaps?
anniegirl1138 