I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange

Thank you all!  I'm perking up and weaning myself off of painkillers.  Things are looking brighter.

Barbara - just a correction on your statement that "Obama had Congress for 2 years."   That has been stated and restated so many times, I thought it worth going over again.  I'm lifting this explanation from elsewhere as I'm too tired to recreate again:

 the Republicans repeatedly say that the Democrats controlled Congress for two years (2009-10) so are responsible for whatever passed or did not pass Congress during that time.  However, given that it takes 60 votes to get anything past the Senate, note that (1) The "Democratic Caucus" contained 60 members for only seven months: from July 7, 2009, when Al Franken formally took office after Norm Coleman had held up the results of the Minnesota Senate election since the previous November, and February 4, 2010, when Scott Brown took office; (2) even with 60 members of the Caucus, there were only 58 Democrats since the two independents caucus with the Democrats--one of them being the conservative Joe Lieberman; and (3) several of the Democrats are quite conservative and certainly didn't vote with Obama very much, e.g., Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln. 

Yes, and jobs are important, but healthcare accounts for 20% of our national spending when it should be 12% or less.  i.e. A lot of money going into unproductive activities.  Healthcare does put a huge drag on our economy and ultimately Obamacare will provide a permanent fix for that.

Me too, Yorkiemom! Thanks for the heads up!

I also like "Intervention"-do you?

Mary 

How come nobody dings on the so-called 'job creators' who have had the benefit of the Bush tax cuts for about 10 years now ... and stockpiled the money instead of 'creating jobs'?  But the President is supposed to just wave some magic wand and what?  I could see that the stimulus created a lot of construction jobs around here ... and we now have new bridges and overpasses and roads that were sorely needed too.  But the other party was against that.  

From personal observation the job market here is much better than it was.  Daughter and 4 of her co-workers left their previous small business employer within the last year and a half (working for crazy people sucks) and all were able to find better jobs pretty darn quickly.  Her new company has hired several additional people since she got there and are currently gearing up to hire more.  A local GE plant that was set to move to Mexico has changed its plan and is now upgrading its facilities here and the jobs will stay.  It's not all gloom and doom. 

Kam ... hope you get to feeling much better very quickly. 

I cannot tolerate clutter.  I can't even watch those hoarding shows ... would give me nightmares just thinking about it.  Dust bunnies however are my friends  

Dx 3/2006, IDC, 3cm, Stage II, Grade 2, 0/4 nodes, ER+/PR+, HER2-

Thanks Mary! I will look for it. 

Hi, Kam...Hope you are healing up well!

After 2 months of taking refuge with my brother and his wife, I'm finally in my new place. The cats (Lucy and Swiffer) are ecstatically happy and I think will be a little sad to see the boxes go. Woke up in my own bed (Oh, Tempurpedic, how I've missed you so!) with the litties snuggled and purring around me. I'm getting over a bad cold, but we got me moved (Thursday) before it started raining here. I have the TV set up and internet, my bed and the cat tree. The kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom are about half done, and the second bedroom is a sea of boxes. No pictures yet.

The place has an alarm system, but it just makes noise; it doesn't go to the police dept. or anything. A couple of things freaked me out the first day. One was when it sounded like someone was rattling the front door. Turns out, when someone opens the foyer door, it creates a vacuum that rattles the doors on the lower level. The second was finding out I can often hear the very large man upstairs, and in particular, when he clomps down his hallway, it sounds like someone is coming down MY hallway! Eek. So I set the alarm system at night and try to ignore the various door rattling, hall-walking noises, hoping if it's a real break-in attempt, the alarm will wake me up.

And I treated myself and bought the "Fifty Shades" trilogy. Starting "Fifty Shades of Grey" after I get offline tonight. 

PS - My brother's daughter was home from college for the weekend and slept on the futon I've been sleeping on. Her comment was "How did Aunt Carolyn sleep on this thing?" I said to tell her to make sure her hips were on one side or the other of the metal bar that runs down the middle. 

Riley - glad you and the litties are settled in. Hope you can sleep at night!

1Athena1,

This is how the 1% dressed right before the French Revolution.  Very Retro. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkFdCfahDdg in a 1789 sort of way.

VERY retro, Notself. Love it. :-)

(Written while wearing my 99 percent Ben & Jerry's T-shirt!)

ETA: Lagerfeld all the way. Womanhood helps the economy. I say femininity is a key industry! Never apologize for beauty or fashion - it's part of what makes womahood such fun, IMO. The only thing I will not accept are furs.

Well, I will soon become scarce again.  Starting Tuesday, my school year begins anew.  Yesterday was the anniversary of the MRI that found my dcis.  I started last year off in chaos (the MRI was on the first day of school, got the call for a biopsy the first week of school, diagnosis on the second week).  I have spent the last two Octobers dealing with breast surgeries and waiting for pathology reports.  I feel a little gun shy, I think.  A little knot is in my stomach, hoping, as I start this school year, that it will roll forward like any normal school year.  I registered for a 10k run for October...I have decided, somewhat defiantly, that there will be no breast surgery this October.  But there is, afterall, that little knot in my stomach.

The rich will be rich regardless of tax policy in this country. They can still buy Chanel. Any rich person will tell you that. In the US, tax rates are very low. Going back to Reagan-era tax cuts will crimp nobody's style.

Just noticed we are on page 900 and still going strong. Yey!

CLC, hope this year is very different from your last one.

CLC-Here's to a great start for this new school year! I go back to work this week as well-the students don't start until Sept. 10th. Our teachers lost several non-student workdays in the last contract so the days were taken off at the beginning of the school year. Makes for a longer summer than in the past. I just don't know how we can keep cutting and cutting..... I still have my job(resource room para, among other jobs) but my job is divided between 2 schools for the 2nd year in a row. Same number of special needs kids, with about 1/2 of the support staff we used to have. 

Riley-here's to feeling home in your new place! It always seems so weird at first.

Welcome back, Bartender!!

Mary 

CLC: Good luck on the school year.  First day jitters added to memory of bC and to threats of layoff - tough situation.  Here's to you - (raising my drink glass in salute).

CLC, hope you have a great school year! This is my 3rd year post retirement as a school psychologist. Sometimes I miss the stimulation and friendships, but usually I'm just happy to take it easy and live, relatively, stress free. Of course my last 3 years were total hell.