General Election Tuesday, November 6, 2018. Vote. Vote. Vote.
(Actually vote once and only once, but VOTE!)
Wisconsin Residents: Information at MyVote Wisconsin.
It isn’t clear to me what to label this varied sundry assortment¹ but I sense tacos will be in my near future so … let’s go!
Happy Birthday, Frood!
Frood marked another circle around the sun yesterday which means I’ve been the mother of an adult for a full year. I’ll take that taco now.
Frood is not her real name. And at the time of her birth, I was not such a hoopy frood to have the foresight that ‘Frood’ was a name that fit. Shoot. I don’t think I’d even read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
“There’s a frood who knows where his towel is.” – Douglas Adams
Although I’m her parent, it seems to me Frood knows where her figurative towel is.
Another writer reported a recurring dream in a Facebook post – “climbing a very tall, very tippy chest of drawers. Question is, what does it mean?”² and dream interpretations were offered — from the humorous: looking for clean underwear, deep-rooted fear of socks not matching, one too many beers; to the serious: feeling insecure, tackling a challenge, trying to balance a lot while not making any fatal IKEA mistakes — I read this post on a morning after a vivid dream that Frood hopped on a bike and rode down a hill to meet her friends in a lush green park and I had the same question too! What does it mean?
I shared with friends on the drive to an American Pastoral book discussion setting. Susan’s instantaneous and immediate reply: “Well, that’s where her towel is.”
And I laughed out loud. Of course it is!
Aye, and there’s the rub. Not dream interpretation. Dreams be dreams. They are what they are. No, the rub is the LOL. Every trip around the sun adds another cynic layer on the shell of experience that makes it harder to locate that sweet bone of funny. It can be a hero’s quest to find humor, permeate the adult shell, trigger the endorphins that allow that spontaneous, deep belly laugh.
We’ve heard it before, we’ve seen it before. The surprise is gone. We’ve been here and it’s not funny. It gets harder to find delight in the delightful. To leave a space for the surprise.
So, as the mother now of a 1-year old adult, I wish Frood a lifetime filled with LOLs, soul clearing belly laughs; a journey filled to the brim with delight and discovery.
Happy Birthday, Frood!
It’s a long walk.
To discuss American Pastoral by Philip Roth. The setting couldn’t have been more perfect.
Club Car gets you there.
Cohen Specific, I
While on vacation, I tripped across a segment of a headline containing the name ‘Cohen’ and I had to click that bait further to read that the article was about Michael Cohen and not Sacha Baron Cohen.
The year of Cohens. Sacha Baron Cohen punks the GOP and other powerful people on “This is America“. Michael Cohen punks Prescedense OTUS.
And I LOL that we need specify the Cohen to which we refer.
Cohen Specific, II
On August 21, 2018, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney Consigliere, pleaded guilty to 8 counts of tax evasion and campaign finance violations. And side note, I’m expecting more to come. Cohen was also the Republican National Committee Deputy Finance Chairman.
But, but, but!
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager Caporegime was convicted of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to disclose a foreign bank account on August 21, 2018.
Same day. One pleads guilty of eight felonies. One is convicted of eight felonies. A Google search of ‘August 21, 2018 guilty eight‘ needs to specify ‘Cohen’ to separate his high crimes from those of his compatriot-not-patriot, Manafort.
Heh, heh. Low friends in high places.
Aside. This info junkie found this note on Italian Mob Bosses from Wikipedia of particular interest:
“A boss will typically put up layers of insulation between himself and his men to defeat law enforcement efforts to arrest him. Whenever he issues orders, he does so either to his underboss, consigliere or capos. The orders are then passed down the line to the soldiers. This makes it difficult under most circumstances to directly implicate a boss in a crime, since he almost never directly gives orders to the soldiers.”
Boss Trump. Ugh. Is it Mueller time yet?
Mental Health Break: President Obama sings along.
In a future blog post, I’ll do a proper rest-in-peace in honor of the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin. For today, enjoy watching President Obama tear up and sing along to You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman live during a tribute to Carole King at Kennedy Center Honors (2015):
I miss them both.
What’s This?
I’m shaking my head, but the universe this last week did a major bend of Robert Graves towards my direction.
Last Tuesday, in yet another book discussion, I like to read, our host and the sister of the book’s author mentioned that her sister, the author, at one point worked for the poet, Robert Graves.
Me: The same Robert Graves who wrote I, Claudius?
Answer: I don’t know.
And Googling ensued and yes, Robert Graves the poet and Robert Graves the author of I, Claudius were one and the same. And a famous Robert Graves quote:
“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”
Monday this week, The New Hampshire Gazette – my most favored print media, Volume 262, No. 24, August 17, 2018, subscribe here, arrived and on page 3 in a text box, I read:
“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”
Robert Graves (1895–1985), English poet, novelist, critic
Hmmm. Wow. Well, I hear there’s money in lottery tickets … or not!
And today I’m wishing my dear readers a beautiful day wherever you are.
¹ “Varied sundry assortment”: Redundancy cubed!
² Jim Landwehr, Facebook post, July 20, 2018.
