TMI a little place to whine

Katrina hit us last Thrusday night, nearly a week ago. Trees are down, vegetation debris litters yards still. At least the yards in Pinecrest. One of the "rich" communities.

The Villiage of Pinecrest has the highest number of judges and lawyers than any other municipality in Florida. Houses are in the multi million dollar range and the "slums" of their perfect little villiage are condos or duplex homes that sell for high hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Pinecrest has apparently the laziest people around. They usually have perfectly manicured lawns, because they hire gardners to tend to it. Well, beleive it or not, those gardners have their own homes to tend to first, and then they have a list of people needing their regular work. So they are slowly getting around to the Pinecrest homes.

You would think that people who want perfection on the front law would at least remove the lose palm fronds and small tree branches from the lawn and pile it up to be carted away, now wouldnt' you.? After all the lawn beneath that debris will die won't it? Well here's the kicker, THEY DON'T.

Down here in Culter Ridge, peon land, with us working class slobs laws have been pick up, trees removed, limbs neatly piled on the curb to be hauled awy or people ahve actually (horrors) taken the debris to the dump themselves! Imagine that? People whose homes are about 1/5 the cost of those Pinecrest homes are cleaned up already. Yet those rich folk are standing there on the porches or patios of their fancy homes, marveling at the mess and driving their Mercedes and BMWs and across debris lying across their driveway instead of actually (shock) picking up the debris and moving it.

Which only proves that the meek shall inherit the earth, like the beatitudes say, because the rich will be so busy pointing out the disaster and do nothing about it that they will eventually sucumb to it.

I got caught in a downpour last night, and trying to get through a puddle I swamped the car it stalled out I had to be towed home. I hope I did not destroy the engine It was a very bad night I am still shaking as I think about it. There is water in the front and back floor of the car on the passenger side. It was terrible.

Tired. Annie, my daughter, drove me to work and will pick me up. If the car is ok I may have it back by the weekend. I am kicking myself in the butt for parking where I did. If I had parked farther away I would have not had to go through the puddle (more like a river/lake).

Not in the mood for chit chat, sorry.

Why did anyone think that a massive structure like the Super Dome in New Orleans would be able to withstand the winds of a catagory 4 hurricane like Katrina?

I think we will be very luck if the 10,000 people taking refuge there are not killed as the roof collapses.

I had always wanted to visit New Orleans, but I doubt if I will ever have the opportunity now.

Katrina is going to slam into the Big Easy and drown her. I pray for the people who live there and anyone else in the path of this monster storm.

New Orleans has some lovely homes, and buildings, none of which are built to withstand a hurricane with the Catagory 5 force of Katrina.

So, if anything survives this devistation will they rebuild it and name it New New Orleans?

I know two other things will come out of this storm. The insurance industry as we know it will be gone, and the gas prices will be over $5 a gallon before the end of Sept. because many of the oil rigs in the Gulf will be destroyed by the force of this storm. An environmental disaster of this magnitude hasn't been seen yet. Katrina may do more to destroy America's infrastructure than any group of terrorists ever could.

God Help us all.

Ok the hurricane is over. Recovery is under way. Near my home one Burger King and one McDonalds is opened to supply those still without power with something hot to eat. The lines are unbelievable, but at least they are running on generator and meeting the needs of the community at large. After all, two days without power means the food in the fridge is bad and you have nothing to cook on if you're an all electric household.

However I have been to both supermarkets near me, the Publix and the Winn Dixie. They are opened, as is the Mobile gas station near me. Opened, but why? The Mobile has no gas to sell and Publix and Winn Dixie have no perishable products. There is no bread, meat, milk or any dairy product available. Anything that required refrigeration or freezing tempature is gone - trashed because the power went out and it was allowed to melt or go bad. No bread because people bought all they could before the storm hit and there is nothing to replace these items on the shelves yet.

My daughter used to work for Publix, in the old days when she was a student. She said the distribution network will take 2 to 3 days to get everything back on track. Until then there will be no deliveries of anything perishable. That sounds right ECXEPT....

That Mobile station that had no gas and the Publix got BEER delivered right on time. Yep. Even the devistation of a hurricane can't stop Budweizer from making sure all of their customers are well supplied. And the Mobile station has their lottery machine up and running (thank God or I would never have been able to buy the winning ticket!).

So now we know the priorities dont' we? No milk, no bread, no meat, fresh produce - but by God - we'll recover because we have not stopped the supply of beer nor the opportunity to gamble! So whoever said America isn't the greatest country in the world was totally wrong. We have it all covered. We know how to help the huddled masses - the common man - John Q. Public.

Lotto and beer. What more could anyone ask for? (maybe a little real help?)

Ok the hurricane is over. Recovery is under way. Near my home one Burger King and one McDonalds is opened to supply those still without power with something hot to eat. The lines are unbelievable, but at least they are running on generator and meeting the needs of the community at large. After all, two days without power means the food in the fridge is bad and you have nothing to cook on if you're an all electric household.

However I have been to both supermarkets near me, the Publix and the Winn Dixie. They are opened, as is the Mobile gas station near me. Opened, but why? The Mobile has no gas to sell and Publix and Winn Dixie have no perishable products. There is no bread, meat, milk or any dairy product available. Anything that required refrigeration or freezing tempature is gone - trashed because the power went out and it was allowed to melt or go bad. No bread because people bought all they could before the storm hit and there is nothing to replace these items on the shelves yet.

My daughter used to work for Publix, in the old days when she was a student. She said the distribution network will take 2 to 3 days to get everything back on track. Until then there will be no deliveries of anything perishable. That sounds right ECXEPT....

That Mobile station that had no gas and the Publix got BEER delivered right on time. Yep. Even the devistation of a hurricane can't stop Budweizer from making sure all of their customers are well supplied. And the Mobile station has their lottery machine up and running (thank God or I would never have been able to buy the winning ticket!).

So now we know the priorities dont' we? No milk, no bread, no meat, fresh produce - but by God - we'll recover because we have not stopped the supply of beer nor the opportunity to gamble! So whoever said America isn't the greatest country in the world was totally wrong. We have it all covered. We know how to help the huddled masses - the common man - John Q. Public.

Lotto and beer. What more could anyone ask for? (maybe a little real help?)

For those interested my family and I are ok.

Katrina was "only a category 1" after all.

The North and East are usually the dirty sides of a storm (wet and with the higher winds), and the West and South are cleaner. However, Katrina did a little dance as she came ashore, and turned left (south). So, with her directional change, the strongest winds became those on the South and West side of the storm.

We got pelted. Hard rain and high winds for hours on end.

I live in an area called Cutler Ridge. It's part of the tv broadcasts they keep showing because it's got a lot of flooding. Not us though, our house is high enough up above sea level to not flood. But places just across the main street nearest us has lots of flooding. That side of the road dips about 6 feet, and that's all it takes to accumulate water. We had lots of rain and lots of wind but only lost some tree limbs. Wind driven rain seeped into the living room, as it pounded our front door. But a few well placed towels took care of it.

We lost power from 8:30 p.m. Thursday until 7:30 a.m. So sleeping was difficult in the closed up house, but we managed.

So we're ok. Now we just wait until we see where Katrina hits next, she's stronger and in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, which has warm waters that will feed her. She's a Cat.2 already and will probably strengthen to a 4 before she makes landfall again.

She's only a category 1. Rain, a bit of wind. Heard my first transformer blow up a few minutes ago, someone will be without power until after the storm passes. So far it's a quiet night.

So much tv coverage of the storm that we got no national news. It would be nice to know what is going on in the rest of the world, but we are so centered on us - on our immediate area that we( or tv producers) can't imagine that no one else is as interested in our plight.

It's just a symptom of humanity that we acquire at birth and never outgrow I guess. Me, me, me. I am the only important thing. It develops during the toddler years and apparently thought not constant, it lies dormant in out system until we feel the need to flash our selfishness.

Me, me, me.
Don't raise MY taxes, raise his.
Me, me, me.
Don't build that trash collection site near MY house, use someone else's back yard.
Me, me, me.
Don't sacrifice My child for an oil war, send someone else's.

Me? I'd rather watch the news to see what is someone else is experiencing and to share it, even if only as an observer. Maybe that way I could learn something and share my knowledge with someone else.

It's summer.

It's Florida.

It's hurricane season.

As I write Tropical Storm Katrina is headed toward the East Coast of Florida. So we may be getting some pretty heavy winds and rain starting tonight or at least by mid-day tomorrow.

So I am not sure there will be electricity. If I haven't blogged for a day or two chalk it up to the storm (shich should be a hurricane by the time she makes landfall). If I have a storm story you can bet that as soon as I am able I will share it.

So despite the fact that his words were on tape with his face saying them, and no editing done Pat Robertson said his words were taken out of context and he didn't really say the US should kill Hugo Chavez?

Ok. I beleive you. (Why not we beleived Nixon, Regan and "w".)

I believe that you have proven to me two very important things.

You, Mr. Robertson, are a man who does not know the law of God (the silly one that says no killing) and you do not know the laws of the US (the one that specifically prohibits any US president from ordering the murder of the head of state of any foreign country.)

On those two statements alone I base this judgement: Pat Robertson is UNFIT to run for any office in the United States Government, including President (or dog catcher as far as I am concerned.)

I wish no harm on Pat Robertson, as a matter of fact I hope he continues to speak his mind (what little there is of it) and tell the world about how the Republicans and Conservatives in America should solve the world problems, and the problems of other countries.

The more that he "preaches" his non-christian Christianity of the moral majority and the Christians who support the Republicans the more mistakes he will make. The more mistakes he will make the more people will look at him and say "Now what the heck is he saying?" The more they listen to it and realize it's a load of manure the less they are likely to believe.

Pat Robertson may be the main reason for an increase in the members of athiests in the United States by they year 2008.

Keep up the good work Pat, speak your mind and let us all know that you are a fundamentalist Christian worthy of the name hypocrite.

That's what I call Christian Fundamentalism.

Why?

Christianity is the religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Isn't it? If you read "the Book", ya' know the Bible, the life and teachings of Christ are in the New Testament.

That books is filled with a message of love and forgiveness. Jesus preached that you should forgive those who hurt you, turn the other cheek. Sound familiar? How about love your enemies? How about feed the hungry? How about throwing out the money changers from the Temple? You know, get out of my Father's house?

The New Testament is about the fulfillment of a promise.

So why do people who call themselves Christians always quote the OLD TESTAMENT? Old Testament, written before the coming of Christ. The Old Testament, the fire and brimstone book. The fear God and punish your enemy book. The Old Testament, the book that wrote of the prophesy of the coming of the Savior.

So these fundamentalists tell us all what Jesus would want by telling us what came before Him. It makes no sense to me. They talk Christ and act like per Christian Hebrews.

Old Testament Jews shunned leapers like Fundamentalists shun those with HIV or Aids. Christ accepted those who were ill and cured them. He didn't condemn them for their illness, yet "Christian Fundamentalists" say that the good book tells them that having AIDS is proof of a sinful person, being punished by God. Excuse me? Show me where in the New Testament Jesus Christ punished any person who was ill? Show me where he shunned them, show me where he pointed a finger and made them feel unwelcome. Come on Christian Fundamentalist, show me where Christ said it was ok to be judgemental and condemning.

Seems to me that Fundamentalists don't believe in the teaching of Christ, they are all so busy waiting for the "second coming" they ignore the teaching from the first coming of the Savior.

The Old Testament was a nice bunch of stories told in vague historical terms to get the Jews ready to accept Jesus when he did get here. It was a way to make ready the path of the Lord, so that people could recognize Him when He came and listen to His word. The New Testament is a bunch of stories telling what Jesus wanted us to learn, and to replace the teaching of the Old Testament. No more "an eye for an eye", it's "forgive seventy times seven." Yet the Fundamentalists dwell on the preaching of the Old Testament , calling themselves Christians but ignoring the teachings that go along with being a follower of Christ.

I don't get it. I think in the end God won't get it either.

When the weather becomes so oppressive all you can think to do is sit in the air conditioning and "relax" I often wonder how pioneers lasted in Florida? I mean it's bad enough when you have someplace to cool off, but without refrigeration and air conditioning how did they do it? Maybe we're just softies in this generation. I don't think 3/4 of us would be here if we didn't have it.

Being a pioneer anywhere was no picnic, but I can't imagine the heat, the sun, the bugs and nothing to relieve you of this for weeks on end. How did the Seminole nation survive the Everglades life? I know if I had to do it I would. And I understand taht if you dont' know any better that you would be able to tolerate the life and the heat, but I do know there are ways to stay cool now and it's amazing that so many people who lived before me survuved without them.

I sound like a spoiled brat. Maybe I am. But for today, I am a cool spoiled brat at least.

Why are we Americans so eager to believe things? We have been so conditioned to beleive what we hear by radio and tv that we just accept new things that soon become the norm. The problem is we have accepted ourselves into obesity.

We accept remote control for our TV, so we don't have to leave out chairs to change a channel. The consequences of that acceptance is less movement, physically, and a lessening attention span mentally. Kids today have no patience for any program that they might actually ahve to watch straight hrough for 30 minutes. No wonder they can't keep their focus on school lessons in a classroom. There is no "remote" to flip the subject off and "subject search" for one they like better.

We are willng to beleive that driving our own car is good, and public transportation is bad. The consequence of which is more air pollution, heavier traffic and a dependency on foreign oil.
We are willing to believe that there are so many bad people out there in the world, waiting to kidnap our children, that we don't allow our children to play in their own neighborhoods, or walk to school. We drive the children even if it's only af ew block, rathter than "risk" their walking. The consequence is they become lazy wanting rides to everyplace, and they get no exercise.

We are willing to beleive that physical education classes are the breeding grounds for bullies, so we dont' allow out kids to play at school. The consequence is that children are fatter than they have ever been and they don't learn to defend themselves from verbal onslaughts. Children don't learn how to be kids, how to resist a pushy individual by banding together so they won't tolerate that kind of behavior. They don't bond into social groups that they have chosen, as opposed to the planned social activities that their parents involve them in after school (if they are lucky).

We are willing to believe that if some is good, then more is better. The hamburger became, regular, medium and large, then medium became the norm and large had to be significantly larger with a catch new name like king sized or super sized. The consequences from those large portion sizes is that one meal contains enough fat and calories to fill the daily food requirement of a linebacker, and our children and teens eat it in one silling and get fatter.

Why?

Because we are so lazy we don't question what we are told.

The consequences of that acceptance ? Look to the While House.

For the second time in two days I have had to go jump into the pool after work. Why? Well see the post from the weekend (8/14) silly, it's HOT. The heat index hasn't been below 100 for days. My potted plants are wilting. My family is drinking bottled water like it was - well - water.

When I get home I would like to exercise, but only someone devoid of usable grey matter would go outdoors and exercise in this heat. So I went to the pool and did some aerobics. The trouble with that is that you get caught up in the water and forget how many reps you are doing. I mean I counted and all that, but the counts become a mantra while you are being lulled into a sense of relaxation by the cool water and the lapping sounds of waves against the pool ledge.

I was doing lunges, and my mind started to drift, and in a stream of consciousness state I just kept listening to the water and counting in my head and doing the lunges, first left then right, left, right, left, right...until I realized I was counting past the 200 mark. 200!! Without even thinking about it I was exercising like crazy. I didn't even feel tired.

Not tired yet.

But by tomorrow morning, and worse yet, tomorrow night, I will be so sore and tired I won't be able to stand. I'll barely be walking without a muscle or two screaming in pain.

So tomorrow, I will be sore - and HOT . What a wonderful combination.

pssst...hey you...wanna hear a great stock tip?

Peanut butter.

Yeah, that's what I said. Peanut butter.

Why?

Well it's not insider information, that's for sure. It's common sense.

I paid $10 this morning to put 3.76 gallons of regular unleaded into my car so I could get to work. $10 used to be just below the full line. Now it's barely to 1/2 a tank. So I used to have more money to spend on eating out at lunchtime. No big fancy restaurant or anything, just away from work and the work crowd. I would do that once a pay period, sometimes twice. So, that was $20 or $30 a month I spent to keep the economy rolling.

Now I put that $20 or $30 into my gas tank to keep OPEC and George W. Bush's oil pals well fed while I eat in the building.

As I said, peanut butter is the coming thing. The stock in peanut butter should be going through the roof soon because I am not the only one who is cutting back on lunch expences. Right now I am still able to afford lunchmeat, but as transportation costs and energy costs rise I will be looking for alternate foods that don't cost an arm and a leg to refrigerate and transport. Lunch meat is perishible. Peanut butter is not.

So, if I wanted to make a killing in the stock market equal to the killing the oil barons are making I have to do it soon. Investing in peanut better may be the wave of the future. Get in now on the ground floor before the prices of it go up too and you're priced right out of the market.

If there is no global warming why is everything so hot?

Miami is usually hot in the summer, but never tlike this. It's so hot we don't venture outdoor unless we must.

The heat index in the northeast states has been around 100 for weeks, the midwest is roasting, but there is no global warming.

Well if it's not then what the hell is going on? Are we moving closer to Sol, our sun? Is the ozone layer so thin that we get more heat as well as UV radiation? Or is the earth just in a menopausal phase and having hot flashes?

It's HOT, and I am not amused.

Do you think we'd have as many wars if men in the current generation would tell the next generation what war is really like? Do you think we would be at war if the Viet Nam Viets actually were taken seriously when they protest the war when they came home? Why is it that the public would rather hear about the wonderful sacrifices and noble acts of men in wartime than the truth about the horrific cost in human lives?

War is hell. Someone famous (who I should know but am too lazy to go look it up right now) said so and people remember the remark. It's quoted all of the time. But people don't seem to remember why it's hell. They would rather remember the propaganda about war it seems.

Men want to remember things like honor, duty,bravery, courage. They want to defend rights, right wrongs, champion the downtrodden. They feed on the words, and imagine themselves exhibiting all of those noble characteristics. They feel heroic. That is until they actually experience it. They find out that war is dirt, grime, boredom and killing. War is waged by soldiers drilled not to think about what they do.

War is waged first on a phychological level , while training the troops to suspend their morality and live with killing and death as a part of the way things are done. The enemy isn't human, or isn't rational or is a threat to our way of life. Protect. Defend. Kill. It's pounded into the soldier's head so that nothing else matters. There is nothing but the urge to follow orders and do what you are told.

War is easy to wage when you don't have to look in the eye of the person you are killing. War is easy to support when you sit behind a desk and read a paper on the results of this attack or that. War is clean and neat when no one is allowed to see the pictures of the troops who died for the "cause" - whatever it happens to be at the time. War is easy to support when the blood isn't on your hands.

But then, occsionally, someone in the depth of war, wakes up and looks around and sees what war really is.

War is brutal. Ask former Marine Sgt. Massey.

I e-mailed myself a column from this mornings Miami Herald that I would like to share with you.

This Story has been sent to you by : sueanncamp@yahoo.comIraq veteran haunted by horrors of warFor 12 years, Jimmy Massey believed in war. He was a soldier, and the depth of his commitment did not allow for ideas that undercut the central premise of his life's work.
The full article will be available on the Web for a limited time:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/ana_menendez/12373005.htm
(c) 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

Maybe if more men like Massey come forward people will understand that there is no glory in war.

Now let me get this straight. The NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) says that it's ok for an employer to restrict the social activities of workers when they are off the clock, forbidding them to "fraternize".

Fraternize apparently, from the way the NLRB accepts the employers definition, means to form a brotherhood, or act as if one exists among a group of people.

So suddently if you get a job the company can tell you who you can be freindly with off site.

I guess that means no invites to baby or bridal showers at the local watering hole at lunch. No formal invitations to the off site retirement party Hey maybe it means no off site lunching with the girls, no happy hour at TGIFriday's for a drink with "the guys" after a long week at work. Does it also include no car pool? How about no comapny family picnic or trip to the ball park in the summer with the company discount for large groups?

I would think that executives would be greatly uspet by this ruling. After all, don't all those CEO's and CFO's and Presidents and VP's play golf at the club together to get to know one another? You know, they take the measure of the man by the way he plays the game? Wouldn't that be fraternizing?

How about those little gatherings at the boss's house, or those quaint cook outs so the execs can all cozy up to one another? What about those dinners and a play (show, opera) where the exec and his wife is compared to other execs and wife combos? Is that fraternizing? Or is that a brotherhood of the powerful?

Ok, brotherhood, that's not allowed is it. Why I wonder? Could the word brotherhood bring on unpleasant memories of a group of men/women banded together as brothers for a common goal, like improved work standards and better pay....hum, could they mean a brotherhood like the teamsters? You know a UNION?

I just want to see them make this one stick. If the paid by the hour employees can't fraternize then I don't think the management can either. Company rules are after all company rules, and if they don't apply across the board one might think they were discriminatory. Discriminatory? Now what in heavens name would the NLRB make of that?

www.discourse.net

OK, people have been asking me (in person) why I am doing an on line journal (weblog). Maybe I should explain why.

The reason I am giving is that it's easier at my age to find the computer than it is to remember where I put a blasted notebook and pen. That may be part of it, but the real reason is probably more deeply ingrained in my being.

I am of the Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot, Puff, Mother, Father generation of readers. Before we advanced to that great classic in literature "Run Spot Run" we had picture books called Think and Do. OK, in the Think and Do pictures you saw this two page spread of action, like a mother and child in a butcher shop or shoe store. The teacher, in my case a nun, would ask you to tell the class what you saw in the picture. I saw a lot, being a very observant child. Then she would ask who would "make up a story about the picture?"

Well, being a vocal child with a very active imagination I always had a story, usually long and involved, about the picture. Or better still I had "opinions" about the picture. (You know, the mother and child are buying shoes, but I would make sure to add the word ugly before the word shoes, I dont' think my editorial comments were well received. )

As a matter of fact, I had so many ideas for stories that the nun stopped asking me about the pictures (unless no one else had any ideas at all.)

So now let's advance a bit to high school, when I, along with 90% of the female population of the world, discovered the Beatles! (yeah, yeah, yeah!) Being your average Beatlemanaic I just had to join a fan club, and along with the fan club came a pen pal. Did I say "A" pen pal? I seemed to accumulate them, from all over the place. I wrote to people in my home state of Pennsylvania, and neighboring New Jersey, but I also had 3 pen friends in England, and one in Japan. I wrote to girls in MA, KS, NC, AL, OR, CA and NY. At one point I had 23 pen pals. Believe me, I spent most of my "spare time" with pen in hand pouring my innermost thoughts to all those special friends. Some of those friends are still my "pen friends" today, but the number is greatly diminished and most of the time I send e-mail not snail mail (much cheaper that way.)

Moving on the the college years I kept a journal. Mostly to keep my sanity after my mother died. I found it hard to relate to young girls of 19 who had no clue what life alone was like. I mean they thought they were alone, but there was always mother and father and a home to go to. Me? I had a scholarship to keep and a sister to watch out for and a bunch of crazy family members - but then that's another blog...

In senior year I met a guy (sigh). A sailor home on leave just on his way back from Viet Nam and on his way back to Viet Nam for another tour of duty. We met on a blind date, and dated 10 days before he left for Viet Nam. I wrote to him daily for his 10 month tour, and when he got home we were married (and have been for the past 33 years.) So my courtship was basically on paper.

After we married I did a brief stint as a newspaper reporter in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA while my husband, Ken, went back to work for Sears in Philly . (yeah yeah, a long distance marriage before it was popular). Nixon era and all that, I was lucky to find work in my profession. I had said I wanted to be a columnist, but never got the chance. I was a general assignment reporter, and usually got stuck doing feature articles.

After 5 months or so of commuting on weekends I decided to move to Philly too, unfortunately no writing jobs were available and low and behold, I was pregnant. So, I took a temp job with the Federal Govt. I liked the steady paycheck but missed the writing, so I started keeping a journal. Still have it, saving it for my grandkids should I ever be so lucky to have some, to read about what life was like "way back in the 20th century."

Doing the wife and mother thing becomes boring, I needed some intellectual stimulation - felt as if I were going stale - so I started reading. Let me clue you in on something, heavy reading and two preschool kids don't mix. Honestly you need something you can read and put down not something that makes you consider the theoretical possibilities of life on other planets. So, I started reading Harlequin Romances.

I got hooked.

I starting looking for specific authors, and I found Janet Dailey, who at the time was the first really American author of formula romance fiction.

Well, as shy as I am (yeah right) I actually WROTE to her and started critiquing her work. To my suprise she wrote back! That started my weekly letter to Janet Dailey phase. Only letter seems a bit mild for what I did. Currently they might refer to it as stalking, I mean I never threatened her or anything, I just "observed" stuff and told her about it...endlessly... since 1976.
She became my journal, a living audience to whom I could bear my soul.

I still write to Janet and she does occasionally write to me. We've actually met a few times and spoken on the phone even. (I wont' go into the stay at home freelance writer phase of my llife here, but maybe some day...)

The along came computers. I was introduced at work and hear about e-mail. My salvation! I could write to all my friends, make new ones and vent. I have progressed from individual e-mails to lists and groups and now finally to blogs. Why blogs? Because I still like to write, but lists and groups have these pesky things called restrictions on time and space.

So, now I blog.

I blog therefore I am.

Any questions?

Let me introduce myself. I'm Sue Ann and I have some opinions. I think about stuff that never seems to be addressed seriously. And when I address it sometimes people don't take me seriously because I tend to look at things with a different viewpoint.

I used to thnk of being a newspaper writer, a columnist. Hey I even did a college English paper on Humorists in American Literature in the 18th Century. I like people who can write a good piece of satire because often the only time that people (readers) will take a serious topic and even consider it is if they can laugh at or about it.

I am a menopausal woman who was 50 seven years ago come this September. I didn't mind turning 50. Unless you're dead before then you'll pass that milestone yourself. Fifty is just another number you cross off before you reach death.

What really annoyed me about reaching and surpassing that milestone is that people refer to it as middle aged (even now at 57 they call it middle aged). For crying out loud, 50? Hey for those of you who can't count, let me tell you that 50 is the middle of 100. Exactly half of a century. So how many of us are going to live to 100? I don't think I will, nor do I want to live that long.

So why do people want to insist that 50 or even 57 are assigned to that "middle aged" tag? I don't get it. Are people so unsure of reality that they have to pretend that they aren't "past" middle age"?

Maybe the problem is that there is no in between name between middle age and senior citizen? I mean we start as a child, progress to a teen or a young adult. After that it's a long time through the 20-30 somethings, into the 40's (which I consider middle age since we average an 80 year lifespan here in the US). But from 49 through retirement there is no catch phrase for the older than 40's younger than 65 generation. Except that they do lable us the "sandwich generation" when refering to the fact that we are obligated to care ofr our own kids and more and more our aging parents. Who wants to be called a sandwich? What am I? Ham and Swiss on whole wheat?

I'm tempted to just call it "still living" but people think that's morbid. I think it's real.

Hey, I'm not one of those that tell everyone I can still do the things I did in my 30's. I mean yeah, I probably can but who wants to? Been there done that. Who wants to be the 38 year old working mother of two teens? No thanks, one trip through hell is sufficent in a lifetime thank you.

Maybe that unlabled group can be the invisible generation. You know, the group people take for granted, with enough cash to help out the kids and spoil the gradkids (if you should be lucky enough to have them by your 50s) and enough energy to still drive around the aging parents when they need transportation for their errands and doctor's vists.

So what dow we call the 50 somethings? I don't have a definate answer, but I dont' know I don't want to call it middle age!