Monday



 

An older Jewish man is walking on the sidewalk in New York.  A car careens around a corner and hits him.  He goes flying and lands in the street injured.  One on-looker rushes over and covers the hurt man with his jacket. Another balls up his coat and puts it under the man’s neck.  A third leans over and asks “Are you comfortable?”

The man looks up and says, “Well, I make a nice living.”

The First Couple of Arlington, Sort of

Yes, one and all, it is Monday and a good joke (courtesy of my colleague Barry) is always a pleasant way to start the week...while offering a useful reminder that, even though I might prefer to be doing something other than sitting at a desk today, I make a "nice living."

I’ve got nothing special on my mind at this moment other than the beautiful fall weather we’re enjoying in Washington – which we sampled in a special way on Sunday by attending the Fall Garden Tour at the White House.

The tour takes place on the South Lawn…where we wandered past the East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy’s Garden filled with beautiful fall flowers and a graceful trellis area with outdoor seating, to the South Portico and the West Wing with its famous Rose Garden and Oval Office, then further down the vast green expanse of lawn to see the White House bee hive and Michelle Obama’s Kitchen Garden -- which was a “wow,” lush with seasonal fruits and vegetables, herbs and other greenery.

Mrs. Sedd and her wonderful husband enjoyed their tour (as did our daughter and her friend) as well as the brisk walk to and from our car to get to the White House, which reminded us, once again, of how impressive and lovely our presidents’ home truly is.

Enjoy your day.

 

 

 

Bipolar Blues

If you review my posts this week, you will notice my bipolar reaction to the end of the government shutdown, the continuing onslaught about Obamacare and the rapidly approaching end of daylight saving time, among other things.

To wit:

·         As happy as I am that my husband is back at work, I have to say it was nice having him do the little odd-jobs around the home that, in some cases, he’s put off for years.

·       The Obamacare website will work and anti-Affordable Care Act advocates will be faced with the stark reality that people can now really get healthcare coverage for a fraction of what it would otherwise cost them. And they will like it.   I’ll illustrate my point with a 21-year-old example:  I was nearly 40 and had left a full-time job to work part time so I could try my hand at writing a novel. (It remains unpublished for those who are wondering…and for a very good reason, for those who are not.)  I had a healthcare COBRA for 18 months with Kaiser Permanente.  It cost over $500/month, which required me to eat a lot of tuna fish and hot dogs for a while.  Healthcare coverage through Obamacare today would cost not much more than half that now…and this is 20 years later.  Ok, I understand that the website is a monumental #@!$-up, but what part of coverage for millions of Americans and saving money don’t people get??? And why is it so terrifyingly anti-American for some folks????  Sorry, all this political chest-thumping doesn’t make much sense to me.

·         I loathe driving home in the dark at the end of the work day.  And it’s horrible waking up to the dark, too, in the morning.  Makes me feel like a lab rat on a wheel.  It’s almost time for to our clocks to be turned back amidst the joys of Seasonal Affective Disorder syndrome.  Looks like I’m going to have to conduct Netflix binging on romcoms for the next 5 months or so. 

But, on the lighter side of life:

1.     Halloween is almost here and I love seeing little kids in their costumes…and my bigger kid too.

2.     Thanksgiving is fast approaching…my favorite holiday of the year because it’s not about giving or getting stuff, it’s about getting stuffed! 

3.       Christmas is my favorite time of year and I begin the holiday the week before by going to as many new movies as I can and shopping at the last minute.  This year, I’m contemplating hosting a small holiday party just because I need a little Christmas.  Right this very minute.  Like now.

4.       I will be 61 soon, which is great.  I’m still standing, which is greater.  And I’ve decided to stay “60” forever, which is my choice.  E.g., MrsSedd@Sixty.

That’s enough out of me for one week.  Enjoy your weekend.

 

A Little Levity

Jokes are one of God’s slightly snarky but mostly delightful gifts to humankind.  My friends B.Jay and Barry must have known that I needed a lighter touch earlier this week so one of them sent a link to a website with great Jewish jokes, and the other (who is a wonderful storyteller) sent his own joke in response.

Sadly, I can’t find the link (stupidly deleted it, #$@!), but I do have Barry’s joke:

Sol is 75.  Sadie is 70.  For many years they were married to others but sadly, both their spouses died.  They met, they fell in love, they got married and it is their wedding night.

Sadie is upstairs in their bedroom and calls down to Sol, “Sol, it is our wedding night.  Come upstairs and make love to me."

Sol says, “Sadie, I am 75 years old. I can do one or the other, but I can’t do both.”

Thanks, Barry!

And you’re welcome.

Dreaming a Little Dream of Me

I’m in escapist mode today:  Too little to do at the office today and too much time to spend on a nice daydream.

So here goes….

I’m having a dinner party at my fantasy flat in a chic London neighborhood with all my posh work friends, and some not so posh.  It is a late October afternoon of grey skies and chill-to-the-bone rain outdoors.  Inside, my husband is nursing a Guinness in a vast sitting room, regaling an intelligent friend (who he is, I know not) with some obscure story about Abraham Lincoln as a young lawyer, while my daughter sits in a window seat, typing away on her mobile phone.  I am happily in the kitchen, getting ready to serve a huge pot of Cincinnati chili and corn bread to the assembled throng.

But no, I’m not really in the mood for a chilly and damp fall evening in London with imaginary friends, so my mind wanders to….

A rustic, fantasy beach home on Fire Island, where my oldest friends in the world and I are sitting on a deck, staring out at the ocean, while sipping some pomegranate and vodka drink or another that tastes cool and refreshing, chatting away like magpies, jumping on each other’s words to make a point.  In this lovely reverie, we are all fit and tanned and younger with lovely hair that hasn’t started graying or thinning out yet….

But then, my thought pattern rewinds back to a special memory from the past….

My husband and I are in the outdoor, heated, salt-water pool at the Banff Springs Hotel in Canada, surrounded by the majestic Rockies.  It is a cloud-free late August day and, despite the sun, there’s an early indication of fall in the air.  Our 3 year-old daughter stands on sturdy little legs at the edge of the pool, cautiously optimistic that if she jumps in, her father will catch her.  Her eyes light up, she leaps, he does, she squeals with delight, we intertwine ourselves in each other’s arms, one happy family unit.  Smile. Misty eyes.  At top of short list of best holidays ever.

Phone rings. Crap. Work.

Back to the here and now. Happy Tuesday.

 

Gravity

Sometimes I feel lead-footed and unable to rise above the petty annoyances of the day.  When that happens it’s usually because I feel pulled back to earth by the realities of work, government shutdowns, money (or lack of it), parenting kids, worrying about elderly parents, and managing snakes in and outside of the house.  (Although I am happy to report we haven’t had any internal snake sightings in the past 2 weeks.)

When that happens, I try to find things that help me “float above” my silly travails -- which is why, this week, I’m deeply involved in the world of Bridget Jones.  For those of you who may not remember Ms. Jones, she is that plucky and sometimes plump British woman -- so beautifully played  on film by Renee Zellwegger -- of the world whose life and loves has made me and many others laugh 'til our stomachs hurt.

In a recently published, new installment of Ms. Jones’ diary, Bridget is now 51, mother to 2 children under the age of 8, and a widow to boot.  Battling the bulge while fighting grief and depression with a tendency to indulge in both food and alcohol “units,”, Bridget is an everywoman at a particularly delicate stage of life:  No longer young but with young children, no longer “hip” though  wickedly funny and no longer “sexy” but definitely “sensual.”

I have to tell you, I laughed out loud at least a dozen times last night while reading Bridget Jones:  Mad about the Boy.

 And that leads me to today’s “lesson.”  When gravity is pulling you down, go for something that can lighten your mood.  Right now, for me, that’s the life of one Bridget Jones as immortalized by author Helen Fielding.  She’s delightful.  And as a woman of a certain age, I can certainly relate.

I can’t wait for the movie.

 

Staycation: The Report Card

As you know if you read this blog, my husband is a lawyer whose non-essential status has entitled him to a nearly 3 week break from the daily grind of our U.S. government bureaucracy (a job he loves, by the way, and is very good at).

Because I know him well after nearly 15 years of marriage, I prepared a short list of “suggestions” for making the most of his time out of the office in an effort to alleviate any feelings of boredom.  To review, I proposed that he…

1.       Powerwash our house

2.       Clear out the gutters

3.       Clean out the shed*    

4.       Declutter the guest room

5.       Declutter the other guest room, AKA David’s study*

6.       Paint the guest room 

7.       Paint the study

8.       Deforest our backyard

9.       Expand his kitchen repertoire from jar spaghetti sauce to jar meat sauce

10.   Take a nap* 

My wonderful husband had his own list:

1.       Fix the hot tub  (which has not worked for 5 years)*

2.       Ride his bicycle

3.       Take naps*

4.       Clear out the shed*

5.       Take old clothing and other household items to Goodwill*

6.       Visit with his family as part of 39^th birthday/40^th HS reunion celebrations in Indiana*

7.       Watch cable news programs*

8.       Stay up late for Daily Show and Letterman*

9.       Have lunch with office friends*

10.   Take more naps*

Life conspired to add to both our lists:

1.       Kill snakes in house*

2.       Hire snakebusters and plug up the house so that other snakes would not invade our happy home*

3.       Forage for food at a variety of Fast Food establishments for family dinners due to late running office meetings for working wife*

 I must say, my husband made a serious effort to accomplish all the tasks on his list while managing ably the surprises that life chucked in his/our direction.  That said, I’m just a little disappointed he didn’t get to more items on my list, especially items 6 and 7, but, oh well.  We’ll get to them when we go through this again in January, right??

_______________________________________________________________________________

STAYCATION REPORT CARD

Grade for Staycation Tasks:  B+

Extra credit for snake killing:  1 full grade

Overall grade:  A+

Please note:  Accomplished tasks are noted with an asterisk (*) and the vast majority came from his list, not mine. 

The Shut Up Already Awards

Although it’s not really totally over yet, it appears at this writing that our government will go back to work soon. (And that means my husband too, thank god!).  The full faith and credit of the United States, and the relative security of your money and mine, such as it is, will be vouched safe – at least until Feb. 7, when we have the opportunity to watch this movie again.

In honor of the outstanding patriotism on display these last weeks, I’d like to recognize the really impressive performances of the ShutUp/Stand-Out  few – representatives, truly, of democracy run amok --  who have brought a great nation to the brink.

·       The Best Actor Award goes to…the one, the only, Senator Ted Cruz.  No one else – not even John Boehner – has displayed such an elevated self-importance and arrogance; it is simply unmatched even in this crew of Tea Party Tots Throwing Tantrums.

·       The Best Actress Award goes to…Rep. Marsha “I’ve Never Met a TV Camera I Didn’t Love” Blackburn, Tea Party Queen of Tennessee.  That lady can talk and spin and talk and spin and say so much and say so little while chewing gum at the same time – and all that with faux Southern Belle charm and perfectly coiffed hair.   I can’t believe she can afford a beauty parlor blowout every day on what a member of Congress makes but then, yeah, that’s right, most all of them are multi-millionaires and that’s why, in part, they don’t give a crap about the rest of us.  You’re the best, Marsha – don’t ever change.

·      The Best Supporting Actor Award goes to …. Mitch McConnell.  He’s a nasty ol’ summabitch, but he’s a patriotic summabitch.  Really.  Thanks for your “White Knight” performance – history will be kinder to you as a result.  Plus, you get one of my awards.  Good on ya, brother. 

·       The Best Supporting Actress Award goes to…Sarah Palin, because you can’t have a constitutional crisis based on “Know-Nothing” ideology without St. Sarah trying to grab Center Stage.  Man, she’s good – she can upstage Ted Cruz and hijack the World War II Memorial protest of 95-year-old war veterans – that’s surely award worthy, don’tcha know?

·       The Best Ensemble Award goes to….of course, the House Republican Caucus, led by “The Speaker”….the man….the one and only John Boehner.  As for you, Mr. Speaker, history will not be so kind, so enjoy this award because it’s probably the only good thing that’s going to happen for you this week...except for maybe a nice Merlot headache.

Let me add my personal thanks to all the award winners, as well as their Tea Party colleagues who in the name of “fairness” and “fiscal frugality” set fire to about $20B as payment for their tantrum of these past weeks. Their love of country, concern for “average Americans” and "jobs", and, oh yeah, our nation’s financial security is really, really, really touching. 

I hope the rest of us will return the favor at the ballot box.

 

 

Things I'm Not Going to Write about Today

As you know, I’ve been a tad obsessed with the U.S. government shutdown and the Tea Party lunatics in the House of Representatives for the past week or so.  While it looks like our political leaders are crawling in the direction of a solution, I remain pretty skeptical that much can be accomplished as long as this bunch is in office….

But I think you need a break today from all my negativity – and so do I – so here’s what I’m not going to do:

·         I’m not going to say mean things about John Boehner.  I’ll just think them instead.

·         I’m not going to speculate on issues of global and personal financial disaster.

·         I’m not going to bug my husband about the things on my list he hasn’t accomplished during his nearly 2-week “shutcation.”  As you know, St. David has been busy casting the snakes out of our house!

·         I’m not going to scold former Republican congressman and big-time US cable TV personality Joe Scarborough for being a loud-mouth bully, a flip-flopper or an insincere egoist (even if I think he’s all of the above) despite the fact I’m really starting to lose patience with him and his morning program.

·         And I’m not going to castigate the “Know Nothing” fiscal geniuses of the Republican Caucus for unnecessarily costing our Treasury up to $300M a day. (Way to go, guys!)

 Instead, I’d like to use what little hold I still have on your attention to celebrate my wonderful husband, as he approaches another 39^th birthday.  My life is better every single day because he’s in it.

So I’ll see you next week after the holiday, during which time I hope to celebrate Columbus Day by cooking a pretty good meal and a birthday cake for the man I love.

Bye for now.

Blind Mice

 “It really is irresponsible of the president to try to scare the markets,” said Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, while acknowledging to the New York Times that “some” economists disagreed with him about the impact defaulting on the debt would have on our economy and, well, the world’s too.


Representative Paul Broun , Republican of Georgia believes the greatest threat to our economy is “Obamacare”  and not a default on our national debt. 

Stupid is as stupid does. 

And then there’s Representative Ted Yoho, Republican from Florida and former large-animal veterinarian. He believes we should be running the world’s largest economy like he runs his veterinary practice.  “Everybody talks about how destabilizing doing this [defaulting on the debt] will be on the markets,” he is quoted as saying to the New York Times, “but heck, I’ve seen that in my business…we’re just not going to pay you today…..”

You’re kidding me, right?

I’ll leave you with this thought from columnist William A. Galston in today’s The Wall Street Journal – the conservative paper of record in this country.

 “By contrast, some conservatives have convinced themselves that the consequences of refusing to raise the debt ceiling wouldn’t be so terrible….

Rand Paul.

“This is a dangerous delusion…

Ted Cruz.

“…and it’s time for the adults in the Republican Party – starting with the speaker of the House – “

John Boehner.

“…to say so.”

See how they run?

Snakes in the House

We have snakes in the house.  Slithery, stealthy, dangerous.  And I’m not even talking about the U.S. House of Representatives!  

I’m talking about real, live black snakes in my house -- the place where my family and I eat, sleep, read the paper, watch TV, and live.  The first one appeared Sunday evening near the front door.  My daughter noticed it, bounded into the family room by saying, “I think I just saw a snake and I almost touched it,” and my husband indeed confirmed the intruder.
Then he took my brand new, All Clad stainless steel frying pan – one heavy sucker, that – and bashed its snake brains in.  My hero.

Yesterday afternoon, I phoned my non-essential government lawyer/husband/snake killer to see how his “shutcation” was going and he told me he’d had an exciting day:  Snake number 2 received a big boink on the head. 

Two down, two days in a row.  Eeeeewwwww.  Call me superstituous, or call me stupid, but is this an omen or just a really bad metaphor for the state of the nation and the state of my house?

My husband rightly decided it probably made sense to get professionals on the case.  So today, snakehunters from Paramount Pest Control appeared on the scene to seal up the house inside and out.  When they were done there, we recommended they head over to the Rayburn Building....

Remember those famous (nearly) last words of Dr. Indiana Jones?  “Snakes.   I hate snakes.”  Me too.  And don’t even get me started on John Boehner….

Day 7 of Shutdown Nation comes to a close at Mrs Sedd's home.

 

 

Hot Water

My husband and I have had an ongoing power struggle over what is now a 14-year old hot tub.
Purchased in the early days of our marriage, the hot tub served as a much needed remedy for my husband’s middle-aged aches and pains (and mine, too). 

For the last 5 years (give or take a few months) the hot tub has remained empty and unused due to some mechanical something or another.  Woodland creatures have chewed one of the exterior siding panels, which have faded from the elements. 

The first year, maybe I didn’t mind this so much, but by this Spring, I was pretty tired of looking at the decaying hot tub that was taking up nearly one-quarter of the real estate on our small patio.  Not too long ago, I vowed to my husband that I would hire minions to take it away one afternoon if we didn’t repair it.

Thanks a lot, John Boehner.

My husband, as most of you know, is presently a non-essential worker of the U.S. government.  He has some time on his hands while the Tea Party anarchists who are currently running our country into the ground make it impossible for him to work. 

Anticipating the lengths that these radical wingnuts would go to, I helpfully made a list of things – suggestions, really – that my husband might want to do to occupy his time during a government shutdown.

He made his own list and at the top of it?  The hot tub.

The scrubbing took a few days last week but I have to confess my husband did a great job.  Next, he went to Home Depot and had a piece of wood cut to exact specifications. This week he’ll begin to reconstruct and stain the exterior of the hot tub so that it doesn’t look like a hideout for survivalist vagabonds (or rats).

At the end of this week will come the ministrations of an electrician, who, I have been lead to believe, will resurrect the hot tub as a working symbol of the good life.

We will have roiling hot water again, to soothe our aches and pains.  And I will never be able to get rid of the damn thing.

John Boehner’s fondness for hot water has seeped into my life in more ways than one, it seems.  Then again, I guess I have lots of company on that score.  

 

Screwing the Pooch

One of my favorite books of all time is Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, a highly entertaining if occasionally profane history of the Mercury 7 astronaut program that made Alan Shepherd and John Glenn national heroes, among others.

If you lost control of your plane, got something wrong in flight, or generally lost your nerve as a pilot, Wolfe’s flyboys would say you “screwed the pooch.”  For a pilot, screwing the pooch is hard to live down and ultimately shakes your confidence to the core.

Much has been written in recent days about why John Boehner has completely lost his nerve, if not all of his marbles, by failing utterly to step up and actually behave as a Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Some of my political friends are eager to give the Speaker the benefit of the doubt:  he’s “playing chicken,” they say, waiting for his moment to do the right thing.  Other friends say he can’t see a way out of his predicament or, worse, doesn’t have the courage to act because he cares more about his title than his country.

I’m leaning – uneasily – in the direction of the first point of view.  Because Speaker Boehner can turn this around if he wants before our country becomes completely ungovernable and your job security, home values and retirement savings disappear in what the smartest people on Wall Street are saying will be a financial Armageddon if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.

But if the unthinkable does happens, members of the Tea Party Caucus will quickly realize the high cost of being reckless “true believers.”  How will they know?  They’ll see if in the eyes of friends and family, knocked back on their heels as they open their 401K statements.  They’ll see it in the number of “For Sale” signs that suddenly and desperately blossom on their district streets as interest rates go through the roof.  They’ll see it in the distracted, distressed way their once-strong supporters look at them when they pass by. 

They’ll see it when they look in the mirror. 

And that, my friends, is screwing the pooch.

 

My Non-Essential Man Around the House

Although he couldn’t have planned for it -- even if he did predict it a few weeks ago -- my lovely husband is just another non-essential government employee on a “shutcation” this week.

As those who read me from time to time know, I suggested a few things my beloved could do to occupy himself during the shutdown showdown that Tea Party Republicans were so keen to have.   This list included decluttering the guest bedrooms, a bit of yard work, some interior painting, that sort of thing.

Mr. Sedd took my little list a little seriously, so I’d like to give a quick progress report on his efforts to do some kind of work on Day #1 of the US Government Shutdown of 2013:

I proposed that perhaps our shed needed some TLC with respect to the overstuffed nature of that property and, well, the inability to get anything in or out of it without risk of losing life or limb.

Update:  My wonderful husband not only cleared and reorganized the too many items in said shed, but he took items to the Goodwill Store which, as Martha Stewart likes to say, “is a very good thing.”  We get a little tax deduction slip, and an unknown shopper gets a Karastan rug (among other things) for pennies on the dollar.  Not too bad.

I suggested that my husband work on his culinary skills during his little unpaid vacation courtesy of Ted Cruz (who, god willing, will get his own unpaid vacation from the Senate the next time he’s up for reelection).

Update:  My daughter and I were treated to Crisp and Juicy Salvadorian Chicken at Chez Sedd last night…and a fine take-out meal it was, too!

I had 10 tasks for my dearest and he has made significant progress on 1 of them but gets bonus points for feeding his family.  Given the current state of politics in Washington, D.C., there will clearly be more updates to come from me.

 Stay tuned.

 

Speechless

Sometimes it is better to say nothing than to say anything.

Words have consequences.  If you call your boss an idiot, you may get fired, or at the very least, marginalized.

If you shout at a driver in a car that has cut you off or made it impossible for you to merge into a lane of traffic, you invite road rage.

If you raise your voice with your child, you’re making the kind of memories that may require years of therapy to undo – for both of you.

And if you argue with your spouse in a mean-spirited way, you can leave bruises on your heart.

Yesterday, a very close friend and I sparred – at times angrily – over the truly harsh invective, abdication of responsibility and lack of leadership on the part of our federal government and its representatives.  Before our “discussion” spun out of control, we took a breath, walked our comments back a bit (but not a lot), then agreed to disagree so we could go about our business for the rest of the day.  Although my friend and I have often viewed politics in very different ways, our 2-decade old relationship matters to us both so we try not to test it too often.

Now I’m not Queen of the World, or even mistress of my own destiny most of the time…but I do know that sometimes you have to put the rhetorical bullshit aside to move head and get the task at hand done.  You don’t always like the job you are given to do, or the person you are doing it with or for, but there you go -- that’s life.  And no one ever said it was going to be easy. 

It’s time for our elected officials to put the rhetorical bullshit aside and do the job we sent them to do, as distasteful as it may seem to many of them:  to protect and defend this great country by serving our collective interests through compromise and commitment to the greater good.

There is dangerous kabuki theatre playing out in our nation’s capital this month, and I pray to God cooler heads prevail.  Until then, I guess I’ll remain, like many of you, speechless.  For now.