Conspiracy Theorists, Unite!

God, I love living in this world where government is evil and people are sheeple. It's amusing and entertaining to watch the sheeple run.

Every week it seems there is some new conspiracy theory. Evil government, false flags and the rest of it. Now I'm not saying they're all bogus, but some are so silly I have a hard time believing smart people actually buy into them.

Take 'chemtrails', for example. There are some who believe in 'chemtrails' - the government deliberately spraying chemicals into the atmosphere for some inimical reason. Now this, if you give it an instant's logical thought, is just plain silly.

First, of all, why? Why would they do this? What is the point of spending several thousands of dollars per hour to do this? There are simpler, more cost effective ways of doing whatever it is these chemtrails are supposed to do if government wants to harm the sheeple.

There are our water sources (more on that, later) or our food, like cereals, bread and pasta since those are processed to death and packaged.

How hard would it be to have government push some new additive to the food industry, requiring that it be included in Kix or Cocoa Puffs or Golden Grain pasta or soda whatever other product if government wanted to do 'things' to the people?

Better still, how about flu shots or vaccines? Millions upon millions of people line up every year for their flu shots and tens of millions get their kids vaccinated.

But wait! Government is dependent on its sheeple to support it, so why would they deliberately do harm to the flock? After all, without the flock, government has no one to govern and control. Without the sheeple working hard and paying into the government's coffers, the government will cease to be. It's like the golden egg / goose thing. Kill the goose and the eggs stop coming.

So no, I'm afraid the chemtrail theories are beyond silly.

Then there's the claim that 'carcinogens have been added to municipal drinking water'! Well, okay. That's a true statement since, up until the past fifteen or twenty years, fluoride was routinely added to drinking water. That's because dentists noticed something a long time ago.

People in regions where there is naturally occurring fluoride in the water tended to have stronger teeth and fewer cavities. It was studied and examined and ultimately decided that it would be a good thing to add fluoride to drinking water in regions without naturally occurring fluoride. So they did, and I grew up drinking fluoridated water.

Are my teeth better because I did rather than didn't? I don't know and I don't know of any way to prove they are or they aren't and, frankly, it doesn't matter. I don't have cancer, either. And I didn't grow a second head or... anything.

Now, though, in this day and age when everyone is leery or outright afraid of government, conspiracy theories are everywhere. Some have at least some basis in fact and others don't.

Yes, municipalities and their water districts added fluoride - at a time before it was known that fluoride might cause cancer. Now we know better so we've stopped.

Does that mean that the municipalities and water districts had some devious plan to kill off the population through a cancer epidemic? Probably not, for the reasons previously stated: without the people government would have no one to govern and it would cease to be and without the people government couldn't collect money to run itself. Same with the water districts. Without customers, the districts don't exist.

Besides, cancer is a very expensive disease and since most people are middle income or low income, government would end up footing the bill for a lot of the treatment.

More recently, there's a to-do emerging about chromium 6 being found in water sources around Sacramento, California. Okay, and again, so what? See above about government / sheeple. Same question: why?

There's also the fact that it's a naturally occurring element! This excerpt is from the EPA's website, which was updated in November, 2015 (I've added the bold text):

Background on chromium

Chromium is an odorless and tasteless metallic element. Chromium is found naturally in rocks, plants, soil and volcanic dust, and animals.

The most common forms of chromium that occur in natural waters in the environment are:

• Trivalent chromium (chromium-3)
• Hexavalent chromium (chromium-6)

Chromium-3 is an essential human dietary element. It is found in many vegetables, fruits, meats, grains, and yeast. Chromium-6 occurs naturally in the environment from the erosion of natural chromium deposits. It can also be produced by industrial processes. There are demonstrated instances of chromium being released to the environment by leakage, poor storage, or inadequate industrial waste disposal practices.

http://www.epa.gov/dwstandardsregulations/chromium-drinking-water 


Now, reading around the web, I don't find anything that's going to make me stop drinking water. What I found is that chromium 6 is far more dangerous if it's airborne. If you get it on your skin or breathe it in, you have a far greater risk of suffering some horrible fate. Since the vast majority of us will never be exposed to dangerous levels of this naturally occurring element, it's not worth worrying about.

And that brings us to Flint, Michigan. Now this is criminal and if a whole bunch of people aren't prosecuted for criminal negligence and public endangerment, there is something seriously wrong in the State of Michigan.

Was it deliberate, though? Did the Flint, Michigan government deliberately collude with the water district to poison the water source? No, of course not. (Goose / eggs, remember?)

The Flint water district and city decided to divert river water through its existing lead pipes. The water is corrosive and those lead pipes, commonly used for plumbing and water service up until the 1970's when PVC pipe and other materials became cheap and available, leached lead into the water. Then, people started to complain about the quality of the water - it was discolored and it smelled and it tasted bad.

This eventually led to the discovery of the problem. No doubt the city and county looked into the bank accounts and realized they had a huge problem and no money to fix it but didn't want to scare the sheeple, so they did deliberately cover it up. And that's where the criminality begins.

However, if you opened your tap and ended up with a glass of water that looked like this:

would you drink it?

I doubt it if you have a lick of sense. I mean, look at that. Those look like toilet leavings before flushing, don't they?

You would call your water district and complain, which no doubt happened, and then you would probably go out and find another source of water. Perhaps a bottle of water from your local supermarket. It's not terribly expensive and it does qualify as 'food' under the food stamp program so even if you are on food stamps you could manage it.

That, however, doesn't change the fact that there is a major crisis unfolding in Flint. It's a horrible, devastating situation for the families who live there but, and this is a very big but, the government did not deliberately poison the water. They did deliberately cover it up, but that's a different kettle of fish and one for the courts to sort out.

So, again, I'll sit back and watch the sheeple run in circles as they search for the next conspiracy to get wound up about.

Have a wonderful day.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Fox + Chickens = Kerfuffle

Kerfuffle. I love that word. Such a silly word. It makes me think of:

Last week we had the kerfuffle over Trump and Fox News and the debate and the aftermath and now it's over. All done.

Fox had its debate sans Trump.

Trump had his vet's event sans Fox.

CNN tried to chart the middle path, talking about the debate sans Trump while showing Trump's event sans Fox. It was amusing, to say the least.

Then there were those all week declaring, 'It's because Trump is afraid of Megyn Kelly!' which is laughable. C'mon, what woman who wants to be taken as a serious professional allows pictures like this to escape:

I mean, unless she's a member of the Oldest Profession or a lingerie model for Victoria's Secret, that is not professional.

Now don't get me wrong - I think she's a beautiful woman, smart as a tack (most of the time) and a capable news talking head. But for Trump to be afraid of a piece of smart, eye-candy? Gimme a break.

I think what gets under Donald's skin with this one is the fact that he's got a thing for blonde women but this blonde woman won't give him the time of day. That's just me, speculating.

Whatever.

And while all of this is going on, Hilliary Clinton and Obie-One are playing peek-a-boo (or peep-bo if you're from the UK) with James Comey and the FBI.

Hilliary is running around shouting at the top of her lungs, "I didn't do anything wrong!" (Sounds a bit Bill-ish to me).

Which, of course, continued to be an open question because of a certain little blue dress and a little thing called 'impeachment'.

In Hilliary's case, we have a smoking gun in the form of e-mails collected from her server. Some of those are so sensitive that they cannot be released to the people investigating this mess.

Now someone at my work asked, "Why is this so important?" My jaw just about hit my desk because, to me, it's obvious. Then again, I worked for a government contractor and saw first-hand how seriously they take this stuff.

No non-employees could walk anywhere - not even to the bathroom - without an escort. Every employee had not just a badge, but a badge with their picture on it. When I signed up to work there, I got verbal warnings and written warnings which I had to sign. Dead-serious non-disclosure agreement, which I had to sign. Warnings everywhere that if I handled anything for that contracting company and it made it out the door in any way, I could be fired and I could be prosecuted and sent to jail. And that was at the mud on the bottom of the ocean floor level of heirarchy.

Then we have Hilliary, swimming up near the top of that ocean, blithely going about transferring data, highly secret and sensitive data, to an unsecured - i.e, non-encrypted, not securely protected from tampering or hacking or anything else - computer. It's like posting national secrets on a gmail account.

And the data probably contains information gathered in hot-spots around the world. Perhaps even messages to and from Chris Stevens, the late ambassador to Libya who was killed at Benghazi because Hilliary and Obie-One couldn't be arsed to either provide more protection or withdraw him and his staff.

So all of this is out there on something no better than a gmail server. And the Chinese and the Iranians and India and North Korea and everybody else probably tripped over it as they were collecting sigint (signal intelligence = electronic intelligence) as they do all the time.

Perhaps, at first, they couldn't believe anyone like the Secretary of State would be so woefully stupid as to do this, so maybe they passed over it. Then again, maybe not.

And in those e-mails are twenty-two that, if rumor has it right, have the capacity of endangering people's lives.

People take great risk for belief and patriotism and, if they believe the United States will help them or their family or community or country, they sometimes work up the courage to talk. Then, once they do, they live in constant fear of being found out. Thus, the need for tightly secured, highly protected servers. Except if you're Hilliary Clinton and are either blithely stupid or think that you're bigger and more important than some little guy in Iran who just took a head-shot for passing information.

On Friday, Obie-One met with Berns, privately. Now there's all sorts of interesting speculation about that. Doesn't seem like Obie-One and Berns are bestest buddies since this get-together was notable. I doubt they were comparing calendars for lunch or a golf date. No, I suspect it was one of three things:

1) Shut up about the e-mails. We have enough trouble with those and don't need you stirring the pot.

2) I have to recommend that Lynch lynches Hilliary and passes down an indictment, but we're still not giving you the nomination - that's going to go to Joe and Liz.

3) Both of the above.

See, Obie-one, because of his faithful Sycophant of State, is in an untenable position. He's in the last year of Legacy Building. Will his legacy be one of setting politicians and their appointees above the law by giving Hilliary a pass?

Well, that flies in the face of the Constitution and the guarantee contained in the Preamble - the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal'. There is no provision anywhere in the Founding documents for government officials being treated differently or with greater preference under the law than regular folks.

Another point, one which would be just as damning, is if he doesn't let Lynch lynch Hilliary. If he gives both a pass, he is likely to have James Comey and half the FBI leadership stand up and walk out on him. And Comey is not a push-over. Comey threatened to do this once before, and I believe he meant it. Comey is a law and order guy who sees purely in shades of black and white / legal and illegal.

So, does Obie-One's legacy stand as a president who effectively pardoned a traitor to the country by not permitting an indictment and had a revolt at the top law enforcement agency as a result? Yeah, that'll look good in the history books.

He's a politically savvy guy who's entire life has been spent looking out for himself, his position and how he is perceived among the people. He is purely self-serving when it comes to stuff like that, and now he's being tested. He is caught between a rock - his pride and dream of what his legacy will look like - and a hard place - those Elites behind the scene that pull the string of Obie-One and every other politician in Washington.

They probably don't want to see Hilliary indicted. They're probably furious with Obie-One and Hilliary for creating this mess, but they need and want Hilliary in the Oval Office to further their agenda.

What is Obie going to do? Cave and let Hilliary take a pass and see his golden legacy turn black with tarnish, or...

Wait! Cavalry trumpets in the distance! It's Joe and Liz to the rescue! We can toss Hilliary to the wolves, let her take her lumps and pay the price in some cushy place, but keep the agenda of the Elites alive and well - we'll bring out Biden and Warren and dust them off and thrust them into the fray. Sure! That sounds like a plan.

After all, Biden went to great lengths a few months ago to say that he wouldn't be running and why. Now, more recently, he's making noises about how he 'regrets it every day' that he's not running. Uh huh. Yeah. Probably began regretting it since that 0200 phone call that said 'it's looking bad for Hil so you'd best be ready to pony up and ride, son.'

We'll find out. It depends on how things play out in the next week or so.

Obie-One and his puppet masters can't wait too long. If Berns does well in Iowa and New Hampshire, well enough to bring into question the eventual outcome of the election later this year, they might pull Hilliary, toss the indictment at her, and shove Joe and Liz into the limelight in her place.

Now that's guaranteed to piss off the liberal base because there are people out there clamoring for Hilliary and her ovaries (her sole qualification for the job as far as I can see) to run this place. If she's yanked and yet another bland white man is shoved in front of them, game over. The Ovary Voters will stay home, Bernie's voters will push him along, coupled with defectors from the Ovary Class, Trump will take Biden apart one bit at a time (the man is a Gaffe Disaster and a moron) and the Democrats will have a right mess on their hands.

If Berns runs the table after New Hampshire, how can the Dems not give him the nomination? But they don't want to, because he, like The Donald, doesn't take money from the Elites (aka special interests). That means that if either one of those two win, the Elites no longer have control over the White House - for at least four years.

I love politics - from the outside. Have a wonderful day!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Oh Just Grow A Pair Already

Since the 1970's, when I was in my early teens, I have been hearing women crying for 'equality' across the spectrum.

In my view, 'equality' is a myth. No one of us will be 'equal' to anyone else - it's not possible because of so many variables.

As part of the campaign for 'equality', the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created. Initially, as all such organizations do, they had a big tent and a broad (no pun intended) base. Then, as always happens, politics poked its nose under the tent flap, pushed its way in and took over.

Now, the women crying for equality are just as unlikely to play fair and equal as their male counterparts. If a liberal woman comes under fire, they put on the warpaint and sally forth to defend the poor unfortunate's virtue.

However, if a conservative woman or any woman perceived to have right-of-center leanings comes out against... oh, let's say Bill Clinton, these individuals who demand "equality" give the lie to their stance. They remain remarkably silent. I have seen it happen again and again.

Remember Paula Jones and Juanita Broddrick when they accused Bill Clinton of sexual impropriety and rape, respectively? Crickets drowned out the NOW gang's protests. Those crickets got so loud, they scared the NOW gang back into their tent and those protests against Bill Clinton never took place. Instead, the NOW gang rallied behind Hilliary who stood by her man and used a staffer's flip 'bimbo eruption' label to tarnish the women who claimed her husband had abused them. Yeah, now there's a classic case of 'equality'.

What's sick-funnier still is that now, while Hilliary is out on the campaign trail, she's telling women that if they've been abused, they have the 'right' to be heard and believed. But that's okay, it's just another example of Hilliary's inability to tell the truth or be consistent.

When Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her, the NOW protesters were out in force. She was a poor mistreated woman and he was an evil conservative. Never mind that testimony throughout the affair in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee showed that one of them was lying - it never became clear which, but Thomas took a seat on the Supreme Court and she is wherever she is.

More recently,I have been listening to all the cries about Donald Trump's 'unfair' treatment of women. And then, looking for something else, I came across this article:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/donald-trump-a-champion-of-women-his-female-employees-think-so/2015/11/23/7eafac80-88da-11e5-9a07-453018f9a0ec_story.html

Which says, in part:

But many women who have worked closely with Trump say he was a corporate executive ahead of his time in providing career advancement for women. While some say he could be boorish, his companies nurtured and pro­moted women in an otherwise male-dominated industry. Several women said they appreciated how Trump granted them entry to a new playing field.

“From the standpoint of being a woman, I just thought he was phenomenal,” said Sunshine, 74. “So supportive and encouraging. . . . He gave me the ropes, and I could either hang myself or prove myself.”

And then there's this from the Daily Caller:

Appearing on “CNN’s New Day” with Chris Cuomo, Michael Cohen, Trump’s general counsel and an executive vice president at Trump Organization, said that while the billionaire’s companies employ 57 percent men and 43 percent women, “there are more female executives at the Trump Organization than there are male.”

"And women who are similarly situated in positions similar to that of their male counterparts, are actually paid more,” Cohen said.

 http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/17/attorney-trump-companies-employ-more-female-execs-than-male-video/

Yet another one:

Heilbron did not return repeated requests for an interview, but Res and Sprague both described Trump as a supportive boss who gave them a shot in an industry that was particularly unwelcoming to women.

“When I first started at this, I’d find nasty drawings of myself on the job site, and men would try to intimidate me by peeing on the girders,” says Res of the years right around the time she met Trump.

Which makes it all the more striking, she says, that he hired her for his signature project, because he liked the way she stood up to the men when he was working for another builder. This was before his bodyguards, his bestselling books, and his comb-over, Res says, back when there were just six people in the entire Trump Organization, back when Trump drove his own limo to Res’ father’s funeral because the chauffeur was off that day. Overnight Res went from earning $25,000 as an assistant supervisor to $55,000 as vice president. She had never run a project before, but “he told me he knew I could” build Trump Tower, she says.

http://news.yahoo.com/whats-up-with-donald-trump-and-the-women-not-090043983.html

So here we have documentation that Trump treats his women employees fairly. He pays them comparably to and sometimes more than their male counterparts. He 'promoted women in an otherwise male-dominated industry'. So where's the problem? Is it because he also treats them equally as 'one of the guys'?

Apparently that is the problem because while they reaped the benefit of his even-handedness in his businesses, not all of his women employees appreciate his remarks or behavior. Barbara Res, one of the women quoted in the first and last article didn't appreciate it at all. Enough that she's voting for Hilliary (assuming that one doesn't get indicted).

Still, let's give credit where it's due. At a time when women in this country were scratching and clawing for every level upward toward 'equality', Trump was reaching down and lifting capable, qualified and able women up.

While women are screaming about how horribly Donald Trump treats women, they are demanding equality across the board while, at the same time, they're pushing a "women's agenda".

Now, come on, girls - which way do you want it? You cannot have it all ways - you have to pick one way and either continue whining when someone says 'boo' to you, or you have to grow a pair. So let's ask the foundational questions:

1) Do you want someone like Trump who has a proven track record of hiring, developing, nurturing and promoting women, and who treats them like an equal (one of the guys)?

2) Or, do you want some half-assed girly-man 'in touch with his feelings' who talks about equality but doesn't do a thing to move it forward?

Trump is not going to change just because you whine and cry. He is who he is and he is how he is. He's a guy. He embodies prototypical guy-ness - the locker room, jocular, crude and unapologetic guy-ness.

And that's just fine with me and with other grown-up women like me. I don't necessarily like what he says, and even if he said it to or about me it wouldn't faze me. Why? Because I am a woman. I am a big person, all grown up and I recognize that he's and ass and I'm not.

So you go on. If you cannot accept the man as he is, you go on ahead and crawl under the covers, suck your thumb, hug your teddy bear and cry yourself to sleep for the unfairness of it all.

Me? I'm going to keep on thinking he's an ass, a loud-mouth boor who hasn't a clue how to think before he speaks, and listening to all else he has to say because, while I don't like the behavior, I do like the man.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Trump's Triumph?

We've all heard the news over the last few days. If you've been living at the bottom of the ocean or under a rock you might have missed it, otherwise not.

Donald Trump is gasp! not participating in tonight's debate.

Since the moment of his announcement about this, the newsies have been running in circles, waving their hands, and crying about the fact that Trump won't be there because he objects to Megyn Kelly being a moderator. Having gone back to read their exchange there, and the exchanges between them since, I don't blame him. She's not professional in her interviews with him. She doesn't like him and it shows.

If you didn't see the first debate, here's the start of this whole thing between Kelly and Trump:

Her first question out of the gate at that debate was qualified by some as a tough question and by others as an unserious "gotcha": "Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ slobs,' and 'disgusting animals.'"

http://www.vox.com/2016/1/26/10835994/trump-megyn-kelly-debate-boycott


C'mon, little girl. Pull up those grup panties and get over it. People say ugly things about other people all the time.

What is fascinating is that when I went back in time to find similar nasty remarks made by the Left's Golden Girl I came across a fascinating 2008 article in Scientific American - and this excerpt strikes directly at the heart of this discussion about Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump and will he / won't he / should he, etc.:

Being aware of how the ad hominem attack works can help us evaluate which instances of its use we should ignore and which we should consider. Ask yourself: How relevant is a political candidate’s character or action to his or her ability to perform in office? How pertinent is any person’s past or group affiliation to the claims that person makes or to that individual’s expertise in a specific domain? If the character-based attacks are not relevant to these larger issues, then they are best ignored. Instead we should attend to what is really important: What is a person asserting? Why does he or she offer a particular view, and is the view defensible?


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/character-attack/

Looks like this isn't a new 'controversy'.

Trump has made ugly remarks about women, many times. Yes, he does stoop down into the gutter, not stopping at generalizations but getting highly personal in his remarks. But! That proves he has a mile-wide character flaw and nothing more.

Kelly, by raising this at a political debate (not an etiquette debate), shows that she took this personally.

Now, because he's refusing to meet this dame across a debate stage and deal with her silliness, there's a big hoorah across the networks. Trump has been called 'childish', 'petulant', 'unprofessional' and just about everything else you can think of for days. Talking heads and pundits, commentators and pinheads all are weighing in.

After digesting this, watching and listening and thinking about it, I think I know what's behind the excitement.

It's so simple I had to take all the verbiage off and... It's because, by refusing to participate, Trump is marginalizing the organizations that have worked so hard for months to marginalize his candidacy.

Let's go back to the beginning: Kelly asked Trump a question about personality. It has zero to do with policy or what he would do as president. Why? Why, of all the questions she could ask, did she ask that?

This unrelated-to-the-presidency nonsense continued through the first half in a most unprofessional manner. I've gone back and looked down into the transcript.

http://time.com/3988276/republican-debate-primetime-transcript-full-text/

The moderators tried hard to start a food fight between the candidates, attempting to pit one against the other in one-on-one challenges, like this one, almost immediately after the debate started:

WALLACE: Senator Rubio, when Jeb Bush announced his candidacy for presidency, he said this: “There’s no passing off responsibility when you’re a governor, no blending into the legislative crowd.”

Could you please address Governor Bush across the stage here, and explain to him why you, someone who has never held executive office, are better prepared to be president than he is, a man who you say did a great job running your state of Florida for eight years.

 Now, this, at least, does have relation to the presidency and qualification for the office, but really? Asking one candidate to address another (and no doubt hoping for sparks if not fireworks as the result). Unprofessional in my view because it does nothing to allow Rubio to advance himself. It just invites him to disparage Bush and damage himself in the process if he speaks badly.

And here is the entire exchange between Trump and Kelly that night:

KELLY: Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter. However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women.
You’ve called women you don’t like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”
(LAUGHTER)
Your Twitter account…
TRUMP: Only Rosie O’Donnell.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: No, it wasn’t.
(APPLAUSE)
Your Twitter account…
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Thank you.
KELLY: For the record, it was well beyond Rosie O’Donnell.
TRUMP: Yes, I’m sure it was.
KELLY: Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you answer the charge from Hillary Clinton, who was likely to be the Democratic nominee, that you are part of the war on women?
TRUMP: I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct.
(APPLAUSE)
I’ve been challenged by so many people, and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China. We lose to Mexico both in trade and at the border. We lose to everybody.
And frankly, what I say, and oftentimes it’s fun, it’s kidding. We have a good time. What I say is what I say. And honestly Megyn, if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be, based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.
(APPLAUSE)

Looking at that, and I grant that I don't have all of the background - what he's said - I really think she was out of line. What has that question got to do with anything?

So he's not going to tonight's debate in Iowa. So what. If Jeb Bush or John Kasich or Ben Carson or Chris Christie bowed out would there be this huge kerfuffle? No. There would be questions and perhaps some commentary if it was Rubio who walked away and the same with raised eyebrows if it was Cruz, but no one would be throwing the kinds of firebombs at those candidates that they're throwing at Trump.

And it's that which makes me believe that Fox is worried about their ratings and the after-effect of Trump's walk. After all, if Trump doesn't go, and I don't think he's going to since he's already made a commitment to attend a fund-raiser for military veterans, Fox's ratings for this 'do' tonight may spike at the outset due to curiosity, but will probably drop like a rock after the first commercial break.

We'll see, but I am glad that Trump has principles and is willing to stand on them. That is a good character component and one I can admire.

Think about it and have a lovely day.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Oh, Thank GAWD!

Okay, okay, okay - I started this the other day and set it aside and got busy and... here it is, old news (by today's standards). But that's okay because I am STILL delighted with the way things worked out last Sunday.

What has me so happy you ask? Of course you do. After all this is my blog and in this little interweb page, my happiness is everything. (Insert Grinning Emoticon Here). Now, here's what I started and set aside:

YAY! The New England Patriots lost to the Denver Broncos in their NFL playoff game. I'm sure that not everyone who's reading this cares, except football fans like me who detest the New England Patriots.

I despise Bill Belichick, the Patriot's head coach. I think he's an arrogant ass, although he has got to be a pretty strict disciplinarian. You never hear news of any of his players getting into trouble with the law. With the League, yes. But not with the law.

What I dislike the most is that cheating runs like life-blood through the organization although they've only been caught and publicly outed twice. That indicates cunning and it's top-down culture.

Sports Illustrated wrote another article about Patriot team cheating, and it's pretty damning.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2015/09/08/patriots-cheating-suspicions-bill-belichick-tom-brady

If a team plays great ball and wins because of superior talent, that's admirable. If a team stoops to cheating to win, that's disgusting.

Sean Peyton, the head coach of the New Orleans Saints, is another unscrupulous asshole who's desire to win supersedes basic sportsmanship and player safety.

In his case, he was suspended from the League for an entire year because he told, not just encouraged but told his players to target players on the other team - and the hell with the penalties. The fact that that targeting could have crippled or otherwise ended that other player's career made zero difference to that piece of dung.

Football is an ugly dirty sport and not all coaches and players are decent human beings. However, Peyton Manning, the quarterback of Denver, is a class act, and so is Gary Kubiak, the head coach. John Elway, the General Manager of the team is another class act. The entire team has an ethic that other teams should admire because you don't hear about players getting stupid and getting into trouble, and you don't hear about scandals and cheating.

Which makes the Bronco's win over a dirty cheating team even better.

On the other side, the Panthers wiped the floor with the Cardinals - it was a hard day for Arizona's QB Carson Palmer.

Either of these teams would be a worthy opponent for Denver, although I would rather see Carolina than Arizona (since they're in the Eastern Conference while Arizona and Denver are both in the Western Conference). I'm just delighted it is one of these teams and Denver. Now I won't have to find something else to do on Superbowl Sunday. Like weed the yard or something.

Beyond being able to watch the game, and I don't know which team I'll be rooting for, I won't have to suffer through seeing Belichick with his usual dyspeptic grimace on the sideline. I swear, the man always looks like he's got a case of really bad indigestion (or he's trying hard not to fart).

So I am thrilled we won't have to look at him on the sideline again until next season.

And I'll spend the next week and a few days in the lead-up to the Superbowl trying to decided whether I want Peyton Manning and the Broncos to win, or whether I want Cam Newton and the Panthers to do it. Both are class acts so it's hard to decide.

Have fun and I hope your team wins - in whatever sport they play!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Yak Doo & Brussels Sprouts

I know not many people like Brussels sprouts. They are pungent - kind of like what I would imagine yak droppings to look and smell like. Not that I've ever seen or smelled yak droppings. We don't have many yaks around here, in Northern California. It's just... me, my weird and wunnerful imagination. What can I say?

But I do like Brussels sprouts - roasted with a little olive oil, some balsamic vinegar and white pepper. They're flavorful and stinky and just plain good.

I also like mushrooms and some people don't like those, either. Hubby and Daughter, for instance. They won't go near them, but I add them to everything I can think of. Except ice cream and yogurt. They don't go so well with dairy, unless you're adding them to an omelet.

Why am I talking about this stuff? Probably because I'm eating Brussels sprouts as I write this and probably because the last time I roasted the sprouts I experimented and added quartered mushrooms to them. Those didn't turn out so well. Overdone and a bit rubbery so I won't make that mistake again.

In other news, I watched the Iowa townhall for the three Democrat candidates last night. What a waste of an evening that was!

Okay, I got to see Bernie and listen to him. The entire concept of his campaign: "If it moves, tax it".

One question for him was about expanding Obamacare to a single-payer system. That is something near and dear to his heart. How he would pay for it? Simps:

1) Eliminate private insurers.
2) Increase the tax on every person in this country by $5,000 + the $10,000 average cost of premium and deductibles to pay for it so every single person would pay $15,000 in taxes to pay for the coverage.

I don't know about you, but $15,000 per year per person in my household would be more than my take-home salary. To pay for his dream I would be taxed about 110% of my earnings. How does that work? I don't get to eat? I can't pay to get to and from work? I can't pay my property taxes?

What he didn't say is that that wouldn't be enough because there are a lot of people who receive subsidized premiums - they don't earn enough so don't have to pay a penny, which means that people who do earn enough also have to carry the freight for those who don't. Yeah, that sounds fair (NOT!).

He's an idiot. I knew it before and he confirmed it in spades last night.

He also wants to tax "Wall Street speculation". Well, guess what that is. That would be your 401k or Keough or other investment accounts.

See above to my opinion of that idea.

Hilliary looked and sounded more desperate than usual and it seems she might have reason.

Hubby was awake at 0300 this morning and was checking on the markets (it's his passion, so he looks anytime he's up in the middle of the night) and there was a new poll out. Seems Hilliary's poll numbers have dropped again.

As far as O'Malley - he of the <1% poll numbers - I don't even know what he was doing there. A poster child of "Vote for Me!" and no ideas or findable positions.

It was pathetic and, as I said, a waste of an evening.

What I'm looking forward to is the GOP debate Thursday night. That should be interesting because the divisions are widening and the differences are more apparent. I just wish they would get rid of Kasich and Bush and Carson and leave the field between the front runners so they can get a better shot at explaining their positions. Rubio doesn't have a chance. His campaign is almost in full meltdown, like Bush's and Kasich's, but he does have a pulse so I'd leave him in. The others, though. Nope, DOA.

I do like Ben Carson, I really like and admire the man. I just don't see him as presidential. I can't see him making hard and fast decisions on crucial issues. He doesn't strike me as a strong leader. I think he'd be too nice to be a strong leader, willing to piss people off if he solidly believes the course he wants to follow is the right one. I also can't see him being an effective negotiator, and that's what we really need. We have got to have someone capable of getting all parties into a room, sitting down, finding common ground and building a coalition. I don't see Carson in that role.

Having Cruz and Rubio in the White House is pure insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Deal making and negotiating is something Trump has done his entire adult life. He's good at it, so let's give him a shot. Hell, we can't be much worse off than we are now.

Yes, they have their followers. Yes, they are getting numbers. But the numbers aren't meaningful. Four percent? Really?

Anyway, enough of that stuff. I'm going to go finish my Brussels sprouts (aka yak doo) and my lunch.

You have a lovely day!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

The Pleasure of Putting My Eyes Out

Yesterday was affirmation of that statement as it relates to shopping. It's not a true statement, not by a long mile. Just read back a few dozen posts to the ones about my eyes and my fear (terror) that I had the start of a detached retina.

But that does pretty well describe how I feel about shopping. I hate shopping and simply saying 'I hate shopping' doesn't describe how I really feel about it.

Yesterday and last weekend are two perfect examples.

Last weekend I had the Saga of the Jeans. The end result, after going through the horror of actually finding them and paying for them, was wearing them.

Pair 1 is fine. It's not a perfect fit because they're just a touch too big, but I can live with that. They ride reasonably well and I don't feel as if I have to keep grabbing the waistband to haul them back into position.

Pair 2, however, is something else again. Same brand, same style, same cut, but nothing like the same 'feel'. They feel like nothing better than a pair of crack pants. Whoever made the fabric used about 300% too much spandex (and why does every garment made by man these days require spandex, anyway?).

They bag and they sag and they shift and they are miserable to wear. Ordinarily, I am not a consumer who complains. This time I did because I figure they need to know to improve their product. I specifically said: I bought 'em fair and square. I washed 'em and I wore 'em so I don't expect anything in return.

This just makes me hate shopping even more.

Yesterday I got to go to Costco. Normally, I like Costco. Or, at least, I don't hate it. Yesterday, though, made me hate Costco, too.

I decided to buy gas, which I never do on the weekends because the station is packed. But I decided to get it over with so I wouldn't have to do it on Monday morning.

Got into line - one car ahead of me with two cars at the pumps. I figure it'll be just a couple of minutes. Sure enough, the front car finishes and pulls out but the guy in front of me doesn't move. The vehicle in front of him is a big truck with a correspondingly large gas tank. Five minutes I sat there waiting for something to happen. It finally does and I get to the pump.

I put my card into the reader and get the "Remove Card Quickly". I did. "Re-insert Card". I did that twice more and, by then, I am annoyed. I am annoyed that I have to do this at all. I am annoyed that the idiot in front of me didn't take advantage of that empty pump before. I am annoyed at the stupid mechanism.

Idiot finishes before I do and gets back in his car just as my pump stops. I finish up and get in my car and start the motor and idiot is still sitting there - paying absolutely no attention to the fact that there's a line behind us, and that those people probably want to get this over with, too. Idiot.

So, I put my car in gear and pull out to go around him and that is the point at which his brain engages. He pulls out.

Almost fifteen minutes spent doing something that, under normal circumstance (stopping during the week) takes about five minutes and, on the weekends assuming I don't have an idiot in front of me, takes maybe ten. I'm annoyed.

I find a space, park the car and get into the store. My shopping is done in about ten minutes because I know what I want and where to find it.

At the front of the store they have moved tall displays in front of the registers so you cannot see the lines from the other side of the displays. Is this deliberate? I have no idea, but I pick a line and... it's long. It's five people long and the guy at the front, which I didn't realize immediately, had two overflowing carts.

Shit. I look around. All of the other lines, now that I'm on the 'right' side of the displays, look just as bad so I heave a heavy sigh of resignation and settle in to wait.

Front guy's first cart is emptied and his wife starts unloading the second cart and... crash. She dropped a double jar of jalapeno peppers. Oh, frabjous day!

Four full carts in front of mine and a puddle of vinegar spreading from a mess of shattered glass intermixed with peppers.

Cue the mop bucket and two guys tasked with cleaning it up. In the meantime, as we all do, I'm looking around at the other lines.

The woman who had been behind me but whose husband had stationed himself in another line which moved faster than the one we were in has moved over and has reached the register while I still have three people in front of me.

What do I have in my cart? A bag of six avocados and a case of water. That's it. That's why I'm there. That's what I'm buying and I stood in line for nearly twenty minutes for the privilege.

By the time I got to unload the avocados onto the belt, I was so frustrated and annoyed I was ready to just walk away and leave it. Then, the woman in front of me has this insulated bag filled with stuff - which means the clerk has to unload the bag in order to scan the items inside it. Irritation notches up another two degrees, and spikes again when he says, "Oh, the bag of veggies broke open."

Shit. So they deal with that while my toes are just about doing a tarantella inside my shoes from frustration and impatience but, by this point, the temptation to just leave the cart and walk away is over-run by "just get it over with". I waited and they finished. My order took zero time since it was a matter of scanning just two barcodes. I paid and got into the line to get out of the store. I was NOT happy but when the guy at the door said, "How're you?" I didn't snap. I just said, snidely, "Just peachy, thanks."

In the car, I turn on the motor and start to pull out, stopping when a family strolls by at a snail's pace as if they haven't a care in the world. They didn't stop to wait for me to pull out. They acted as if they hadn't seen my tail lights and the car moving. They wander off and I start to back out again and the cart wrangler shows up. Standing between my car and the cart corral that's right next to my car he ignores my back-up lights and wrestles carts into line so he can pull them out, line them up, so he can push them back to the store. It's like my car with its taillights (which do work, by the way) doesn't even exist.

Finally I get to pull out and start home. I get into a line of cars at a traffic light and there's another idiot in front of me. He's not paying attention, looking down (probably playing with his God damned phone!) and, when the light changes, he just sits there. I honk. He looks up, scrambles and he just makes the left turn light before it turns red, leaving me sitting there at the red light. This is a major intersection, not a minor, and that light is about three minutes long. If he hadn't been screwing around with his phone we both could have made that light but noooo. He had to pay attention to his phone.

I HATE people who do shit like that. And this is why I HATE shopping.

Thank God it's Sunday and the shopping is done for another week.

I'm breathing again. Sitting here in my PJs with my coffee and I will relax, dammit.

Have a quiet, shopping-free day with no idiots around.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Pinheads On Parade – What is the National Review up to?

Good grief, what a joke and what a lot of fuss about nothing. How many ‘real’ people really read the National Review, anyway? It’s for political junkies and their ilk and I can’t remember the last time, except on television recently since it’s in the news, that I’ve even seen a copy of it anywhere.

They wrote a hit piece about Donald Trump. They got a lot of press and publicity, and a lot of people like me are offended by just what I’ve heard about it.

I haven’t read it. I won’t read it because I know all it will do is make me want to do something bad to this group of arrogant pinheads.

What they don’t ‘get’ is that Trump is speaking to the American people in a way that’s got a lot of us sitting up and listening to what he has to say.

Our household is paying closer attention to the news – and not just one channel or two, but we’re even watching MSNBC which is disgusting television on its best night. Hell, every time I see Chris Matthews (he of the ‘thrill up my leg’) he looks like an escapee from a lunatic asylum, and Rachel Maddow (Madcow in our household) is a flagrant, unapologetic socialist fishwife of the worst sort. Nonetheless, we scan all of the channels because we’re interested in ‘what did he say today.’

Before this election cycle, I never looked for or watched videos of political rallies on YouTube. We’ve already done it several times this election cycle.

Never before have I looked forward to watching political debates.

I am doing all of these things now and it’s solely because of what Donald Trump is speaking to in me.

Even hubby, who swears there is no political solution to anything in this country, and who hasn’t voted in I can’t remember how long is sounding hopeful again.

In the past six months Trump has been leading in virtually all of the various polls all of the various polling organizations take. It’s unheard of for one candidate to get the lead, take the lead, stay in the lead and expand on the lead, but he’s done it because he has got at least grudging interest from a wide spectrum of possible voters.

Now, though, the pointy-pinheads from inside the Washington Beltway have their knickers not just bunched or twisted or wadded. They have them so tightly wound that the wearers of them are squeaking in an undignified manner. Case in point, the National Review, an allegedly conservative newsmagazine, is scared stiff that someone from outside the Beltway might win the day. Gathering together, these oligarchs have put together a hit piece to try to slow if not derail Trump’s momentum.

Apparently they know better than we the people know what we want and what’s good for us.  That, at least, is what I gather is the tone of their hit piece. Seems they would far rather apply insanity again with Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush or another political insider rather than try to strike a new course.

What is the word for arrogance beyond arrogance?

Who on Earth are these people to have the temerity to tell me and others like me how we’re supposed to think and what values we should hold dear?

Who the hell are these people to tell me and others like me who we should or should not vote for?

Didn’t this kind of political posturing and mind-bending go out of style in the 1980's with Pravda's make-over under Gorby?

In all the years I’ve watched politics, a prominent conservative newsmagazine has never before, in my memory, come out and attacked the front-running candidate on the right side. They’ve gone hard against the left-wing candidate, but they’ve either supported or kept silent about the right-wing guy.

Not this time, though.

OMG!! The man changed his mind! He used to agree with things when he was younger, but then he matured, gained more life experience and realized those things weren’t necessarily good.

Newsflash, Rich Lowry, et al! People grow up, they learn, they see life and living and they change their view of things. It isn’t unusual. A lot of smart people grow up and change their minds, why can’t Trump? Personally, I think the ability to think outside the box, to consider one’s position on a subject, learn and decide to change position is a good thing.

It seems, listening to these pinheads, Ted Cruz has changed his underwear but not his mind, same with Hilliary and Berns. Does this rigidity in thought make them a better candidate? I don’t think so.

In order to lead successfully you have to be able to adapt to changing situations. World politics is highly fluid and we have been stuck in one gear for the past fifteen years. Look how well that’s done for us and for our standing in the world.

Or… could it be that they built this hit piece to deliberately make Trump seem more palatable to the undecided middle-of-the-road voters? Could it be that they’re laying down a scent trail of “Hey, if the Washington Elites don’t like him, maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all…”? Is it possible?

Yeah. After all, in that Doritos ad out there, a pig flew.

I think I'm going to look for another Trump rally on YouTube. I suggest you make up your own mind and do as you see fit when the time comes.

Best~

Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Well, I'd Heard of "Plan Nine".

 There's more than usually interesting news from and for the scientific community this week. Two researchers from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) announced that they 'think' they have found another real planet that's part of our solar system.

This isn't something that happens every day. In fact, every time the astronomical community gets bored they re-open the debate about Pluto. Is it a planet or isn't it? They promote it, argue about it, then demote it. Poor Pluto, it just can't catch a break.

Now, though, it appears that there's something Out There that's causing these scientists to salivate.

It's egg-head stuff, but essentially they've been studying the Kuiper Belt, the astronomical junkyard that scientists used to think marked the outer edge of our solar system. There were some objects in that collection of planetary left-overs that were behaving strangely.

It's interesting stuff and, if you want to read more, the story is here:

https://www.caltech.edu/news/caltech-researchers-find-evidence-real-ninth-planet-49523

So, the cynical, amused and rather whimsical thought I had was: 'Was Ed Wood prescient?' After all, there is his turkey of a movie 'Plan Nine from Outer Space' and now the astronomical community is calling this new find 'Planet Nine'. That has a certain symmetry: 'Planet Nine from Outer Space'.

Yeah, I know. They aren't really calling it Planet Nine. They have some long moniker that trips off the tongue like 2015BBBlah345.


On a completely different subject, the intelligence community and police in England are mumbling accusations in Vlad's direction. Seems he might have ordered the murder of a Russian citizen who didn't like Putin and who spied against Russia for the UK.

This man died by drinking tea laced with polonium-210. This element is not something common to the grocery store shelves, so it wasn't accidental and it was probably quite painful.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35370819

This wouldn't be the first time a foreign spy died an "interesting", albeit slow and painful death ordered by the Kremlin (they're such lovely people there).

Back in 1978, a Bulgarian man was killed by ricin delivered via the prick of an umbrella. He was just waiting for his bus at the end of the day when another man walked up and hesitated. The man waiting for the bus felt a pain in his thigh, the walker-upper man mumbled an apology, dropped the umbrella and hurried off. A few days later, the waiting man was dead from ricin poisoning.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2158765/Poison-tip-umbrella-assassination-of-Georgi-Markov-reinvestigated.html

It's an interesting story - rather James Bondish. The umbrella used in the event is on display at the CIA Museum in Langley, Virginia. Of course, neither you nor I, unless we're a CIA employee or family member, or are there on Agency business can get into the museum. Still, it's interesting.

What interests you, today? Just curious because there is a lot of interest outside of politics and other nonsense.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Nature and Small Observations

Turkey vultures are not pretty creatures to look at up close and personal, but I think they are seriously cool birds.

Today I was walking back from the other office and a turkey vulture soared overhead, perhaps sixty or seventy feet above ground. A beautiful, graceful sweep of wings and then a long glide in a slow serpentine line. Just wonderful to watch. I tried to find a video of one soaring so I could post it here, but the vulture is far more graceful than the camera work that I found so I settled for a picture.

As I was watching the vulture I saw a redtail hawk sweeping across the road with a mouse in its beak. It landed in an oak tree in an open field where, I guess, it was going to enjoy its lunch.

A wonderful day for bird watching, and I am not even a bird watching fan because, around here, it seems that most of what we have are crows.

Now crows have their points but they're not pretty or graceful. They're big and rather clumsy (have you ever watched a crow land?). They're loud-mouthed and a bit boorish. If they're annoyed, they make a big fuss. They gather in gangs called 'murders' and make a bunch of noise about it. Boorish behavior in my opinion.

Back to the vultures. Sometimes I see them in the early morning when I'm driving to work. If it's cold they'll perch on the top of telephone poles or on fence posts and hang out in vulture-like fashion. It's something I always find interesting to see. And I hesitated there. Is it beautiful? No, not really. After all they're just doing this:

Catchin' some rays because, after all, this is California.

The other day I saw a pretty robin checking out the olives that have fallen off the tree we have outside our back door. He saw me through the window and took off. Most of the robins we see around here are dull in color, a burnished, faded orange, like this guy:

 instead of the bright orange I usually think of when I think 'robin'. This guy had a beautiful color, darker brown on top and a vibrant orange underneath, like this:

Perhaps he's a juvenile? Maybe it was the angle of the sun and quality of the light? I don't know, but he sure was pretty.

Even though I don't get out in the country, much, I am lucky to have the chance to go outside and walk around and see these guys doing their thing. In fact, thinking of that, I think I'm going to take another walk.

See ya!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Uh oh....

I think I just pissed off a bunch of people. I... uh... I spoke my mind, said what I really think. D'ya think they'll be mad at me?

See, there's a thread over on the writer's forum I belong to. It's political and unapologetic about the Left and Bernie Sanders and stuff. In response to someone over there I checked out Bern's voting record. Good ol' Bernie voted against high-paying, long-term jobs several times. Construction jobs and energy sector jobs through about a dozen states that would have employed at least many hundreds of people. Perhaps several thousands of people.

But, no. It was "environmentally" bad - despite the fact that the energy industry, by the very nature of its business and the current political environment has got to be more sensitive to what's good and bad for the ecosystem than just about any other industry. They are overseen by so many different watchdog groups and government agencies their employees can't sneeze without a permit in triplicate. Still, Keystone was a non-starter - even though it would have employed tens of thousands of people during its construction. Site workers, truck drivers, manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, entire industries would have seen a boon and a boom. He voted against it more than once.

Anyway. Over on that thread, the conversation drifted (abruptly) to "choice" and abortion. The subject of partial birth abortion came up. This is a subject guaranteed to light a fire under those sittin' bones I mentioned the other day. Of all of the things people do to one another, this has got to be the most heinous, evil... words fail. There are no words to express how I feel about this... abomination.

In a partial birth abortion the child is developed enough that it has a heartbeat. It's brain is nearly fully developed. It feels pain. It can hear. It is only days or weeks away from being able to survive outside its mother's body. The subject of whether it is developed enough to have a sense of 'self' is a discussion to have with God or whatever creator or non-entity you choose, but it is ALIVE. It is living. Yet, for whatever reason, it is forcibly "torn" from its safe haven and killed in the most heinous, disgusting and cruel way I can think of.

Okay. Not the most heinous, disgusting and cruel way - being burned alive tops this abomination, but it's so close it makes no difference.

And, according to some on that thread and in the general public forum, it's 'Okay' to do this. It's a "choice". It's "just" a choice. Like picking what shoes to wear with the outfit the woman is wearing. It's a choice, like picking which shade of lipstick looks best in this light or with that scarf. What do I want for dinner? Hmmm. Salad, chicken or abortion? Hey! It's "just" a choice, right?

So I described the procedure of late term abortion - partial birth abortion - as I understand it. I described it as graphically as I could given the fact that I could not stomach the idea of reading in detail about what is done. And I probably offended most of the people on that thread but, you know what? I don't really care. Not one skinny little iota really because the subject is important.

Lily-white hands are not possible if you participate in murder, or advocate for murder, because that is what abortion is - at any stage. It's just "more" evil in the late terms, after that child develops to the point where it can feel pain. That child can also hear. It might not understand, but it can hear and it can feel.

And this was easy to write because it is something about which I feel passionately. Think about it. Really think about it and recognize it for what it is: an irrevocable decision that once made cannot be changed or undone.

If it contradicts or goes against your views, so be it. I am not in a position to express or change anyone's mind but my own. I cannot affect the law - an evil, wicked law in my view, from where I sit. It is what it is but it contravenes anything associated with "humanity".

Philippa

The Internal Drought

This is awful and I don't know what to do about it.

For weeks, almost since Halloween I have been struggling with putting anything down on 'paper'. No spark for storytelling at all, not Flash Fiction or one of my novels, not even this most of the time. Normally I eventually find something to write about but it's a struggle. Much of the time I don't and I have to wring blood from the turnip. Today is one of those 'don't' days and I'm starting to get frustrated, which I know won't help.

The story I was working leading into Halloween stalled. It sat, dead in the water, while I went through the shock I suffered a few weeks back. Then, a week or so ago, a little niggle suggested that mayyybe I might be up for trying something. Too soon. That little spark went out and I was back in the dark.

I pretended, hard, that it was okay, that it wasn't bothering me, but it was and it is. Finally, yesterday, I wrote out some ideas that I have for this story and, in doing so, I realized both the problem and the solution.

First, the problem. I'm bored with it. It's... okay, but it's not good. To a new reader, fresh eyes, they probably wouldn't realize it's boring until another thirty pages on, then it would catch up with them. I can see the eyes glazing and attention wandering now.

Second, the solution. I need to condense the scenes and I need to raise a question. A great big hairball of a question to get the reader sitting up on the edge of their seat. The concept of what I need to do was sitting there, in a dusty back corner of my mind, but I couldn't entice it forward. For days I tried and got nowhere. Desperate, I got a long stick and poked and prodded and nothing. It sat there, pretty much sticking its tongue out at me. So I decided to circumvent it, flank it, and I wrote down a summary of the set-up followed by what I have and my options for making it better.

That worked. The idea slunk forward, reluctantly, until... Hallelujah! It came far enough forward I could see it, capture it and hold onto it. Now the problem is trying to find a block of time to focus on this, to get it down, or at least get it started.

This morning might have been a good time, but.... I woke up at a little before four o'clock after having a horrible dream.

It's weird and a bit faded now, but essentially I had decided The Time had come for my exit. It was a normal thing in this dream world, legal and okay. I went to a clinic and had the drugs administered. While I'm fading I decide I have to speak to Daughter. Somehow I get to her and I'm talking to her, realizing that I have only a short time to live but what I have to say is urgent. I'm having trouble getting it out and I can feel myself getting weaker. Suddenly, out of nowhere while I'm talking to her and trying to pass this crucial mumble of intended meaning, I'm using a ShopVac to clean out my car. It's whirring, I'm dying, and she's listening and nothing is going well.

It was weird and unsettling and I woke up and couldn't shake the feeling of impending Doom. It was hours before it passed and, instead of having that extra waking time to focus and write, I was thinking about that weird dream.

Then there was work and learning the new stuff I'm being given (which, it turns out, is nothing to worry about). And I wanted to get this done and did what I've done all too often lately. I sat down and started this morning. Actually in a snatched few minutes before I had to start getting ready for work. It was more pressing to me then, and I knew I didn't have enough time to do anything decent with the other, so I stabbed at this and flamed out.

I got to work and at lunch I started again, but it wasn't... good. Or it wasn't good enough. It was too hard, a struggle, so I gave up as I ran out of time.

Finally, tossing out the idea I started with this morning and tried to develop at lunch, I got here, admitting to all and sundry my state of mental erectile dysfunction.

And that's weird, too, cuz I'm a girl. But I don't know what else to call it. I want to do 'it'. I need to do 'it'. But I can't do it because things aren't cooperating or working as they should.

Maybe in another twelve or fourteen hours I'll get a spark and maybe I can coax that spark into a flame again. I hope so because this being in the dark is awful.

Now, though, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to coaxing, but I wish you a brilliant day where ideas flow easily and fully.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

Sunday Morning In Paradise

Ahhhh, Sunday. Lazy, quiet Sunday. It's... not quiet at all. It's busy as can be and isn't going to let up.

Just household chores and cooking - roasting Brussels sprouts with garlic and quartered mushrooms. Baking my chicken and cooking my rice and sauteing my bell peppers and mushrooms. None of it's hard, it's just time consuming and rather boring between the waiting for it to finish and the clearing up. The good news is that I do this just once a week. It's not like I do this every day or every few days, so that's not bad.

What I make today will feed me for at least a week. Although the sprouts might not last that long. They come out of the oven so sweet and so savory that I have a hard time not eating all of them in a sitting. It's amazing what just a little olive oil, a few sprouts (trimmed) and some balsamic vinegar can do. So yummy. My mouth is watering.

Before getting downstairs this morning, though, the first thing I did was strip my bed and turn my mattress. It's a good thing it's only a full-size. In my next phase I'm thinking of getting a queen set but when I get to the store to pick it out, I'm going to see if I can woman-handle it by myself - spin it laterally and turn it over. If I can't, I'll stick to the smaller mattress. After all, just how much acreage does one person need? A queen set would be nice because, honestly, the full is just a little too short - my feet stick over the end (and I'm not that tall!) when I stretch out and it's not wide enough for me to sleep diagonally all stretched out and not have my toes poke out over the end.

The sheets are in the dryer after being washed with my new pants - hot water because by the time I left the store yesterday my hands were stained with dye from the pants. I also hope they shrink a little. They were just a little too big but the size smaller was just a little too small. I want a happy medium, something that fits perfectly and comfortably. That's another reason I hate shopping - it's an impossible task to find the "perfect" fit which is why there are seamstresses out there. But I don't have the money, or the talent or skill, to refit the "one-size-fits-all" stuff I get from the store.

Compromise, all of life is compromise and this is another one.

It's raining today - which is lovely. We've been getting days upon days of rain interspersed with dry spells, and I'm still not tired of it. I'm still not to the point where I'm turning my back to the mirror, checking over my shoulder to see if the duck feathers are starting to sprout down my spine. That might be the case in another month or so, if the rain keeps up, but I've always liked rain.

I dug around in the garage this morning, too, looking for the old silverware we've kept from our early days of marriage. Sam, our cat, has his own set of utensils and dishes. We keep them in the bathroom drawer upstairs, in the same bathroom where we use the medicine cabinet as his pantry - full of cans of cat food. I prefer using a fork to break up the food while hubby prefers using a spoon. I win. Since I do the majority of the feeding, and since I ran out of forks day before yesterday, I went out into the garage, got some more forks and now the mix will be heavy on the forks. Fascinating stuff, huh?

It's all a part of life and living here, though, and it's a little opening into my world for you to peek through and see how this speck of the other half lives.

Hubby's coffee is set up. MIL's pills are sorted for another week. The kitchen counters are cleaned. The dishwasher has been emptied and the dishes from last night that wouldn't fit are tucked inside. Just little things, normal things we all do. So, no. Not fascinating, really. And this afternoon I'll roast my Brussels sprouts and saute my mushrooms and bell peppers and cook the rice and bake the chicken.

I may even make another batch of my berry syrup since I finished what I made last week. It is so good with yogurt or oatmeal or even over a banana as dessert. Yum.

Well, enough of this. I have hours of cooking ahead so I should get going and stop procrastinating.

Have a wonderful day doing what you choose and like!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

How Can That Be, Phil?!?

Yesterday, Friday, I started this off three different times, all on the theme of How I Can Be In Love With My Life Despite Some Big Hurdles, but it was too depressing. None of the three attempts gained traction. Instead, they slipped backward, into the bog and I don't want to be in the bog. It's too... boggy. And it's depressing, so I stopped, deciding to wait until today.

Trust me, though, I am in love with my life despite those hurdles.

Some of you know some of it. Others know much of it. One or two know pretty much most of it but no one but me knows all of it. And that's okay. It's how it should be - a private corner in my life just as everyone else has.

Then I thought about "cheating" and dropping in one of the flash pieces I've written, but that didn't seem right, so I started this on Friday and I'll finish it on Saturday. Instead of my occasional two-fer-one, it'll be a one-fer-two, and that's okay, too. It'll save us both a little time.

Now it's Saturday. In the afternoon, a bit after twelve o'clock. This wasn't a morning to love, either.

I was out the door at eight-thirty. It was raining. I had to go buy gas and, because my car is old, sometimes it doesn't like being 'fed'. Sometimes, if I let it get just a little too low, I'll fill it up, start it up, move three or four feet and it will stall.

I suspect that it's either because of a dirty fuel filter (which I haven't the money to spend replacing) or because there's an air-gap in the line. No matter. Then I have to put the car in neutral (it's an automatic transmission with power steering), get out, and push. And it's a big car, a full-size station wagon, so it's heavy. And then I get to try to steer it while pushing without power steering. It's hard. But I push it out of the way so I'm not blocking other people and then I wait. After a minute or two, if I try again, it will restart and actually run and I can drive it.

Joy of joys! It didn't stall! I was able to get it to run and drive it away.

Then I went and got the oil and power steering fluid changed.

Then I went to PetSmart and bought cat food for the next few weeks.

Then - best of all! I got to go clothes shopping.

Honest to God, I would rather have dental work without Novocain than go clothes shopping. I would rather have my eyes put out. Anything rather than shop for clothes.

After two stores and about eight trips back and forth between the racks and the dressing room I finally settled... on the first pairs of pants I tried on. An hour of my life spent in futility. I'd suck as a hunter because, for me, there is no thrill of the chase. There is no excitement of catching my prey. If it wouldn't bring tears to the eyes of adults and scare the children, I would prefer to go around stark naked or in my jammies. But, I found what I was looking for and paid for it - a shocking amount.

Then, I got to come back to the hometown and go back to Costco so I could buy the refrigerated and frozen stuff I needed. Then I got to stop at the other grocery store for the yogurt and head of garlic.

Three hours after leaving I got home and walked into... an argument. The same argument I knew I was going to get because it's the same argument I always get: "why'd you spend so much?"

This is one of the hurdles in the bog that's so depressing. Mostly I overlook and avoid this hurdle. Over the years, I've learned well how to avoid it but, unfortunately, I sometimes can't miss. On days like today, everything was wrong with what I did.

We talked about the oil and power steering fluid change before I left. It was still ammunition for this afternoon. "Why'd it cost so much?" To which I could respond, "How the hell do I know? It's what they charge!" or "I don't set the pricing, sorry." Neither of which would help, so I shrug and keep my mouth shut.

We talked about the pants that I needed two nights ago. On this, I don't know whether to laugh or smile or blush, but when I took one of the pairs of pants I wear to work out of the dryer the other night, I was horrified to see that the seat was gone. It was two holes, one on either side of the mid-seam.

Now I'm going to sit here and convince myself that those two holes were where my lower sittin' bones wore through and when I was standing and walking around work those two holes were not visible. Please don't tell me otherwise or I might just die of embarrassment. But they were one very well worn pair of pants.

So, I showed those Holy Sunday Britches to hubby and said, "I have to buy some clothes." He fussed and whined and complained but couldn't very well say, "No" given the evidence.

Today I bought two pair of pants. And I heard about that, too. Even though these are pants that are going to make the other pants I have last longer through not being worn constantly, and even though these are pants I will wear to work, and even though I now have five pairs of pants for work instead of four, he complained.

And I bought food for my lunches, and he complained.

I bought food for my breakfasts and, you got it, he complained.

So I got to go out and do all those things, then do something I hate, and then I got to come home and listen to an hour of whining.

BUT! Out of the fifteen waking hours today, I spent about one in the misery of shopping and about one in the misery of listening to hubby. Tomorrow I won't have to do those things, and tomorrow I don't have to go out and shop. Tomorrow, if I play it right, I can be up, downstairs, cooking and out of the kitchen before he even gets up, then I won't have to listen to him complain about my being in the way.

This is usual. This is my life and, despite this, I do love it because aside from the gnat buzzing in my ear there is so much else to enjoy and take pleasure in. Even sitting alone in my car while others change my oil and I don't have the gnat. Walking through Costco, picking and choosing things that I will make into something I will like without the gnat is pleasurable. It is the choice I make, to ignore the gnat, the bad and the ugly, and look for the quiet times, like now and like the driving around time this morning, alone, listening to the radio with no one complaining.

My future, when the gnat is gone for good and all, is something to which I look forward, and I will get there and then my life will be just about perfect. In the meantime it is those small moments, those little things and short times alone that allow me to say: Yes, I really do love my life.

I hope you love yours, too.

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories

No, I Didn't Win, But I Love My Life

Yep, the Powerball draw was last night and I didn't win. I didn't even win a $5 consolation prize, but that's okay.

Thinking about it on my way to work today, it really is okay. Those aren't just empty words because I am no worse off today than I was yesterday. In fact, thinking of it, in some ways it's a blessing.

After all, I don't have to stand in front of a bunch of cameras and microphones and go off on my snarky responses. I am still me, still employed and still happy in who I am and what I do, and I don't have the added pressure of all that money.

Yeah, it is good and I'm happy and that plays right into something I heard yesterday on the drive to work. Having a lot of money isn't going to make you happy. If you're miserable without money, you'll probably be miserable with money. If you're happy without money, you'll be even happier with money. 'Money doesn't buy happiness' is a true statement. Get happy first, then win a bunch of money.

In different news, today is The Day of Assimilation. It's kind of like the Borg in Star Trek: "Resistance is futile." But that's okay, too. More than anything it's the unknown that's got me nervous, the 'what is it all about' and 'am I up to this'. Given my approach to life and living, I am up to it.

After all, if Joe Over There can do the job, why can't I? Is Joe Over There smarter than me? Maybe. But maybe it's just because he's had training and experience. If it is just because Joe Over There has training and experience, that should not prevent me from learning and gaining the experience. Then I can do the job, too.

Regardless of whether it's because someone else is smarter than me, I have a lunch meeting today with the VP of Finance, the Director of Finance and the A/R Clerk to discuss what's needed. This raises a number of questions:

1) Is this an interview? If it is, that's okay. Heck, I've interviewed often enough and across enough different industries (dental, banking, leasing, engineering, contracting, accounting/bookkeeping, etc.) that interviews don't intimidate me. Heck, I didn't even dress for an interview. I'm sitting here in blue jeans and tennies because, quite frankly, if they're looking to hire me because of my fashion sense, they'll be sadly disappointed. If they're looking to hire me because of my smarts and skills, we'll strike a deal.

2) Is this a simple 'get to know you better'? That's possible. I've been here for a bit more than two years now but I haven't worked closely with this group before and, if they're considering bringing me into the fold, they'll want to get to know me and they'll want me to get to know them.

3) Is this simply an overview conversation: 'here's what's needed' in broad strokes? Possibly but I doubt it because I don't think the VP of Finance has his fingers in this particular pie. The Director does through overseeing the person who's going to train me on this task.

Maybe it's a combination of all three. No matter. I'll go to lunch, get fed, come back and get trained and it will all be fine. I just have to learn what's required, figure out how to do it most efficiently, and make it happen.

It seems there's a bit of a backlog, but that's okay. I just came through a "bit" of a backlog with other things and they're cleared to the point where they're only taking a portion of my time now. I'm sure I can do the same here, and then I'll have attention to pay to other things.

The Stack has shrunk in the past week, and I have wrestled my database into submission. It is now doing what I wanted it to do oh those many months ago. It's still not doing what I want it to do automatically, but it's close enough that it's acceptable. I do still have one more point to deal with, some more reading, another tweak or two, and then I should be 'golden'. Or I'll have to find another solution, but that's okay. That's do-able, too.

So, no, I didn't win the lottery, except in the sense that I am still happy, still working and still as I was yesterday and I do love my life.

I hope you love your life, too, because it sure as heck beats the alternative!

Best~
Philippa

Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories