Just stuff

I am not going to say what I think of the election results because I do not discuss politics in public.

However, I am happy for the people of Kenya. In the Kisumu area, where we lived for over 3 months, I am told that everyone is celebrating wildly. Obama's dad was from the Luo tribe, so of course all the Luos are especially elated. People's lives are so grindingly hard there, and they look at America as next to heaven, ("Take me to Amedica with you," the orphan boys used to say. "I want to be fat! And I want to drive a cah!") and to have one of their own, so to speak, be President of the USA must make them feel like maybe there's hope after all, at least for their children if not for them.

And then there's the whole fact that Steven was also a Luo who came from an area not too far from the Obamas, so they're probably related, don't you think? See, I am just as tribal as a Luo.

And I am also secretly relieved that Sarah Palin can quit traveling and go home and be more of a mom and run Alaska instead of being VP.

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I am really bad for talking first and thinking later. Today is my fine son Steven's 14th birthday. He wants a slingshot. So I went to the bow-and-gun store [since I'm over here in Redmond this week] and asked if they have a slingshot. "I assume you have garden pests," said the nice man. "No, I have a son with a birthday," I said, and two hours later I finally figured out why he looked a little stunned.

{Paul, maybe you can make sure Steven doesn't read this til after he gets his gifts}

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The last few days I've been teaching Emily how to sew a dress, and today she modelled it for the first time, a simple black dress with pink polka dots that makes her look like Jackie Kennedy.

Emily is a person who can wear stuff that the rest of us could never get by with. She's all about drama, as we know, and there's something about the tall, thin, dark hair, large blue eyes combination that means she can wear a mid-length black coat with embossed roses, long skirt, tall boots, and one black glove and one pink one, and look polished and classy, where if I would try to wear the same thing I'd look like I raided the Salvation Army discard pile.

"Trying," baileyandme says she used to call it, when people would try to pull off a look unsuccessfully, in her case, specifically, a mom trying to dress like a younger person. "Vit un kan net" {wants to and can't} a commenter said she called it. Well, Emily wants to and can. IMHO. I think the ever-so-savvy youth girls would back me up here.

Which leads me to my next point. She has a knack for taking a cough drop tin and turning it into a cute handbag, or designing clever vests and dresses, and I think she should start some sort of internet boutique, now that she is actually learning to sew and we have not shed each other's blood in the process. {Don't ask how close we got} And maybe she could actually make a few dollars at this, since she really really wants to be self-supporting.

If anyone out there has any words of wisdom about any of this--web design, possible products, business plans, quality control, accounting, etc--or if you are bouncing up and down in your seat saying yes! I want a little purse made of a cough drop tin with glued-on Sunday comics and a beaded handle! please comment or send a private message.

And don't give me any woeful tidings about starting a business with the economy going to pot because people are still spending millions on cute sweaters and such for their dogs, and on lattes.

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Some people really really irritate me. Especially guys who talk too much. Oh mei zeit, I just want to dig fingernails in something and pull hard. Yesterday I was here at the library and there were three teenagers in the teen section, next to the computer kiosks, and this one was SO LOUD and WOULD NOT QUIT. And he had fat cheeks which did not gain him any clemency in my book. Here's maybe 5% of what he had to say:

Quote of the Day:

"You know what's really crazy? I laughed when I broke my arm, I smashed my hand on a piano and I laughed, I get a needle in my hand and I'm like AAAAAHHHHHH!. . . . And one time there's like this bucket, and like no one tells me there's a yellow jacket nest in there, and I stick my hand in and EEEUUUWWWWAAAA and my arm gets like swollen huge. . .So I was in church one time and it was like dead silent and I moved my back and it was like KKKKRRRHHKKKKK!
--(and there was a girl who giggled appreciatively through all of this. Unbelievable)