Debbie Does Drivel

Don't even start. You know when she's a mother, she'll do this to her kids too. It's the circle of life.

THE PARTY THEME SURE TO SWEEP THE NATION

The woman I volunteer to see on behalf of ElderHelp always gives me something when I visit. Yesterday, it was kidney beans. She really means well and she hates to waste anything, but I wasn't sure I could put those beans to good use myself. Then a brainstorm: why, I'd make my mom's famous taco salad. The one with crushed doritos, thousand island dressing and kidney beans. It just could work. I'd be a culinary sensation and Rebecca could rest easy knowing not one kidney bean was tossed down the drain, unlike the sardines she gave me last year.

So, I did it. Then, another brainstorm: why, I'm gonna throw a party! Yes, a My Mom's Recipes(tm) party. I'll invite all my girlfriends over for a potluck of "mom's recipes." Everybody has one or two dishes that remind them of home, right? Let's prepare them culinarily and have a shindig! It'll be a women empowerment thing: paying homage to the women that made us strong...or weak with stomach upset, as the case was sometimes with my own mama. But that's not nice. And this is about nice! And women! And comfort foods, shitty or not. So I'm gonna make the doritos taco salad, the veggie pizza made with croissant dough and cream cheese and a big ole platter of vanilla pudding with melted marshmallows on top!

It's OK, you can copy my party idea. Just please use the trademark.

BREAK FROM CONVENTION

It's been my rule to not comment politically on this blog, being that it is drivel.
(So maybe I should be commenting regularly? I need to check that.)
BUT, I feel sincere disappointment at these election results.
First you should know I am registered republican, but ended up not voting along party lines. Up until one hour before voting, I was conflicted. I align myself morally with Bush's ideals, after all, but I just could not bring myself to support someone who doesn't seem to live them. I don't mean that he's gone out and had an abortion or surreptitiously conducted stem cell research...I mean he does not have the demeanor of a person who loves his fellow man and as president, will act altruistically on our behalf.

He embodies my worst pet peeve: arrogance. He has an agenda, he wants to accomplish it, and he really doesn't care if he has the support of his people, although he pretends to care. He does what he wants to do, for largely self-motivated reasons and he then smugly charges forward, not bothering to explain himself. It's enough, simply, that he wants to do it.

I'm also not saying I'm against the war. The war on terror though is different to me than the war in Iraq. I know a president is supposed to be strong, but how about admitting a few errors in judgment and exhibit a true desire to readjust and re-evaluate where necessary. How about not acting like the dictators you profess to hate?

My friend says that Bush is a dry drunk. Someone who (now) lays of alcohol, but has replaced it with another obsession...

I think that obssession is unchecked pride. Bush scares me because pride is blind.

ADHD

My baby has taken to sitting up in her crib at all hours, maniacally clapping her hands together in an insane parody of Pat-a-Cake.

Is this normal child development or have I bred a crazy evil dictator?

LATE TO THE GAME

So I've totally discovered iTunes.
What a mind-blowingly great way to obsess about music.
I proudly made my own mix CD the other day and found myself begging people to listen to it.
Call it validation.

I happened to bring extra copies of the CD to events like a voter's information group on Monday and nonchalantly offered to let my friends here it and borrow one if they'd like.

Now, I reach out to you. The music list follows below.
Do you like it? Do you really like it? (Note: If you like hip hop or cool people music, you won't like this. Remember: I like the Carpenters.)

Save It For a Rainy Day /Jayhawks
("Pretty little hairdo don't do what it used to. Can't disguise the living, all the miles that you've been through")

California Stars /Billy Bragg/Wilco
("I'd like to rest my heavy head tonight on a bed of California stars...")

Nanci /Toad the Wet Sprocket
("Legal precedent would set us straight but no one's brought the suit')

Tear-Stained Eye /Son Volt
("Can you deny.....there's nothing greater, nothing more, than the traveling hands of time?")

Penny & Me /Hanson
("If I could soar I'd try to take these wings and fly
Away to where the leaves turn red
But no matter where I am instead")

Good to Be on the Road Again /Cornershop
("Drinking to my friends and drinking to my foes, both keep a young heart moving")

Light Out /Lisa Marie Presley
("Was that bridge I was crossing
Somewhere I stopped walking
I guess I fell off on my own")

All the Right Reasons /Jayhawks
("I don't know what day it is
I don't know the seasons
All I know is I'm loving you for all the right reasons")

Jesus, Etc. /Wilco
("Tall buildings shake
Voices escape singing sad sad songs
tuned to chords
Strung down your cheeks")

Why I Don't Know /Lyle Lovett
("Was that the yacht club
Or just a fishing boat
Was that the leg of lamb
Or was it a billy goat?")

Dairy Queen /Indigo Girls
("I heard that you were drunk and mean, down at
the Dairy Queen.")

All the Stars /Eastmountainsouth
("All the stars that fill the sky, they burn out before our eyes")

Somewhere Over the Rainbow /Israel Kamakawiwo Ole'
("This one's for Gabby...")

I Want to Know /Mavericks
("I want know what promises to keep
I want to know how guilty people sleep")

At 5%

I've been run down in my life. Staying out late, smoking too much, drinking too much...
Used to be I'd come home for a break during college and sleep all the way through my vacation. One time I left Milwaukee at 7AM headed for the airport in the outfit I'd worn the night before, without bothering to brush my hair or de-smudge my make-up. Picking me up in San Diego, let's just say my dad had something to say about his racoon daughter.

I've pushed it at work too. Every October, right before an enormous trade show I used to attend, I'd lose my voice and my head to chronic congestion and sinus infections.

But I never, ever, never ever ever been this low to the ground. I can't sleep for hours, that's why! I can't build myself back up.

My baby has been sick for a week, like me, and is up every hour throughout the evening. It kills me to see her so uncomfortable, so I let her sleep with me, which again is not conducive to the sleeping.

Then, it's up at 6:30, get the baby ready for daycare, shower and to work shortly thereafter.

On Monday, I had non-stop meetings from 8AM to 5PM. NO LUNCH, except for a quick drive-thru on the way to meeting #468 and a walk-up to Sister Pee Wee's Soul Food next door to my meeting stop.

After that, it's to the grocery store! To the baby store for a humidifier and Triaminic! Oh! You don't have it? Then, on the next baby store to find it, until it's almost 7PM!

Then, I nurse the baby. I want her to have my antibodies to get better! But I don't get better!

Ohhhh, so low, so low I feel.

I have to say I'm a teeny bit concerned about my health....I sustained a horrible (DON'T LOOK IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH) breast infection last week. 104 fever, chills, big, red, painful boob. Then, it was on to an upper respiratory thing....

I'm eating oatmeal and stuff. Drinking OJ. Doing stuff like picturing a huge beam of white healy light shining on my boob and throat...but there seems there is no substitute for the sleep I used to get and now never do.

(This post was totally designed to get lots of pity vibes sent my way, thus enacting a huge community wave of healiness that will wipe away my ails and make my whole again. But of course, send the healy vibes to my baby girl first. )

1% and Falling....

I spent the morning in the ER on Thanksgiving, thus cementing the bi-annual Deb-Kev Tradition of Thanksgivings Celebrated in Hospital Wards.

Boy, I just want to feel better. I will apply all my imagination -- and it is a formidable force, I assure you -- to visualizing myself healthy.

p.s. Give thanks for your health, your families and loved ones. By 8:30AM, there were two auto accidents that had already come through the ER. And the waiting room was filled with anxious friends and family.