Long Time, No See

Time flies, particularly during holidays. I, master of procrastination that I am, kept putting off updating my usual verbose commentary on life around me from November 2, 2005 until today. Guess I just didn't have anything screaming to get out of me to say.

Not much has changed. We're still in Iraq, soldiers and innocent civilians are getting blown up by roadside bombs (IEDs in military vernacular); the President is still telling us that all the money and lives we're expending in Iraq will "keep us from getting hit here" (to quote him from last night's State of the Union speach) and that anyone who questions his policies "has no strategy" (again, to quote him directly). Of course, now the NSA is listening in to our telephone calls without recourse to obtaining a warrant through a special court established for that specific reason (because, to listen to the Bushies, it takes too long to follow the law and the bad guys will hang up first), the Palestinians exercised their democratic right to elect Hamas into power, a group that really hates Israel and has been devoted to terrorist activities over the last twenty years or so and Iran has decided that it's going to have nukes whether we or the Europeans like it or not. On the home front, Katrina victims are still trying to figure out how to rebuild their lives without much help from FEMA and the radical right has finally gotten one of their own on the Supreme Court, Sam Alito, who'll probably vote to OK torture and warrantless wiretaps the first chance he gets after helping put the screws to Roe v. Wade.

Like I said, nothing much has changed.

Me? I and Mrs. Blue have been going to a local gym for the last six months, trying to get healthy. It's gotten really crowded there, however, since January 1, with all the guilt-tripping New Years resolutionists trying to lose fifty pounds by Spring Break. I've had to just about abandon the weight machines in favor of elliptical workout machines and the track. At least I've managed to work my way up to five or six miles a night, three or four times or more a week. Don't know that it's done me any real good, but at least I'm not sitting around the house feeling guilty about NOT doing it.

It looks like my late parents' house is finally about to sell. My brother is handling all of that mess. It's only been three years since our mother died and we cleared the place out, but the delay seems to have really helped the final price tag because of the real estate bubble. It'll be sad knowing that the old place, which has been in our family since 1944, won't be there any more. No one in their right mind would try to refurbish it and it isn't exactly a Frank Lloyd Wrightish-looking place that someone would haul off for preservation purposes. Nope, it was built in 1925 and has probably been rode hard and put away wet. It survived hurricanes and termites. As uncomfortable a place as it was, particularly during the summer and winter (no air conditioning or central heat), it was home to me for my first seventeen years and will always be in my memory.

As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "So it goes".