Monday, February 22, 2010

Tiger Woods Walk of Shame


I was sitting in terminal B-9 at a funky little cafe waiting to flee to Miami when the world stopped to listen to Tiger.

The bartender was a young woman in her late twenties and the other customer was a middle aged woman. She was on her way to meet her husband.

Of course, the conversation immediately turned to Tiger.

" He is trash, he let us down," barked the other customer.

"Us?", I countered.

Yes, us he is a role model she challenged.

I laughed." He doesn't owe US shit. He owes his wife an apology and maybe his sponsors."
She was surprised by my response.

I was married for 8 years. I respect the institution. But the vows are shared between the parties. Some marriages, I don't get (Clintons immediately come to mind.) But I don't have to get them.

Woods did not cheat the sport. He cheated his wife. Any repair is between the two of them.

He felt compelled to offer a public apology. OK.

He is an athlete, a good athlete but he is also a man...who like the rest of us are not perfect.

Enough...

Yes, sigh, Yes, sigh YESSSSS!


I want to see this added to the health care reform bill...

h/t dome on the range

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Third time is a charm, oh I don't think so.......


With the smell of my chicken stew filling my home and the blizzard of the hour battering my windows, I ponder....

When did I move to Vermont?

How come no one told me?

I have never been a fan of the white shit. But an occasional snow day is good for the soul. Well, this is the third major snow storm of the winter.

To be technical, the second one of the winter. The first arrived late fall. Details, minor details.

The first one was on a weekend, and I discovered the best selling writer, Steve Berry. I finished his Cotton Malone series, the second snow storm which occurred oh three days ago.

I made the decision to close my office yesterday. Since we are paperless, most of my staff can work (wink, wink) from home. Things have gotten so bad, I actually heard from my California boss of the week. I only heard from him ONCE last year and that was budget time. Not a complaint, just a statement of fact.

The little guy is with his Dad. My daughter decided to be snowed in with me, which is cool.

She began making fun of me about an hour ago. I'm the one who can normally sequester myself for a couple of days and she gets cabin fever.

Not today.

After a pumpkin and walnut waffle breakfast, prepared by my kid, I bundled up and ventured outside. I wiped off my RAV4. I encountered my neighbors in A-1, the interracial gay couple who are always the first out.

It is straight up white out conditions.

The snow is much heavier than the weekend snow. Recognizing that I am no longer twenty I only shoveled for about twenty minutes. The owners of my complex have been money, the snowplow comes through on an hourly basis.

After checking my work e-mail and reading a couple of chapters of Walden, I parked myself in front of my bay window and just watched.

This is when the justifiable parent abuse started.

There is an ACME about 500 yards from my place. The busy front end loader just stopped. After a few minutes of no activity, I began to wonder aloud, is he ok? Did he take a nap? Or just a break? Worse, is he dead?

That is when my kid is like" Moooom, you need to stop. Have you lost your mind? If you are that concerned, why don't you go check, maybe take him some stew. Better yet, move slowly away from the window." Of course she is laughing at me this whole time.

After about twenty obsessive minutes, there was movement in the cabin. He resumed his task of building snow mountains. No one was happier than my daughter.

In the meantime, I counted 10 people walking very slowly through the blizzard conditions.

My daughter's Honda accord is completely buried. She misses her kid, but is grateful for the down day. No work, school, or three year old. I assured her that her feelings are normal and it does not make her a bad Mommy.

I'm sure my Yoga teacher, would tell me that the snow is neutral, it is my reaction to the snow that is negative.

Whateeeeeeever.

I checked on my family and friends. All are well and safe. Weather was the only subject. Only one of my friends seems to be cool with this mess. He reminded me that his family hails from Russia. I have nothing to add to that commentary.

I am blessed that I have electricity and plenty of food.

Next Friday, I am off to Miami for a mini-vacation, they will have to sedate me to get back to Pennsylvania.

Crock pot Chicken Stew

Turn crock pot to low
Spray the Crock pot with olive oil spray
Cut four medium red potatoes in half
arrange at the bottom
layer 6 chicken thighs
layer one bag of trader joe's fire roasted vegetables
Top with one box of organic chicken broth
after six hours add one cup of water
Really ready to eat after eight hours

Yeah, I do cook...................and it's still @#$^ing snowing!