Thursday 12th March

My Thursday morning 'lie-ins' didn't last long.  Was knitting away, watching the evil Fox News at twenty to eight this morning when I remembered I said I would be at Kiwanis, taking notes so that I can do the bulletin to help out while Louise is away.   And - ever eager to please ha ha - I said I would get the donuts for the rest of March and April.  So that's an even earlier start, but it is a nice drive to Tecumseh on a fine morning, and April should have fine mornings.

 

I rang Louise when I got home and she had great difficulty drawing enough breath to speak to me, but said she is doing better.  I suppose 'doing better' is relative to propped up on pillows in hospital, she is able to get around at home with a walker.

 

It was Emmanuel's turn to host the Lenten lunch today.   I didn't get to the service, I was busy, but got there in time for some lunch and a chat with Pattisue, who has a very large swelling on her face.  She has an appointment with the doctor at the hospital in the morning.

 

Spent rest of the day watching the news,  Hilary Clinton and her e-mails and it is not looking good for her.   I don't know why she doesn't just hand over the e-mail server, but so far she hasn't. (Actually one reason might be because her aides were in frantic damage control mode over Benghazi and she wouldn't want that all made public).   

 

And goodness know how many pundits keep reiterating the fact that she is holding classified information in an unsecured (unsecured by State Dept standards) location, which is VERY BAD .   And furthermore, that all State Dept employees, including her, have to sign a form when leaving to say that all classified information has been handed over.  So did she sign the form, and if not, why not, that is the burning question of the day!!   As usual, the cover up is looking worse than the offence.   There are now two investigative committees looking at her.  One delving into Bhengazi, and the other, well I am not quite sure what the other is doing, but I think it is addressing the missing e-mails and has she broken the law.

 

The other main news story has been rioting in Ferguson, Missouri when a police officer, back in August, shot a black teenager in self defence, and a Department of Justice Report into the shooting has just been released. 

 

This Report found widespread racial bias in the Police Dept., and three police officers who were sending racist e-mails have since left.   The Report said that the police disproportionately targeted black people, the Police Chief and City Manager have resigned, and protestors are shouting that they didn't resign soon enough.

 

Although the rioting today looked bad it was actually only about 200 protestors.

 

It has been suggested that the rioters are anarchists, and an American billionaire, on the far left, is behind the anarchy and finances it because he wants the US to become a European style, socialist democracy.   Personally, I can't see that happening, I think he is on a hiding to nowhere.

 

This is an incredible story.

This three year old survived in a crashed car, in which her mother was killed, for fourteen hours.  The car left the road and overturned, and couldn't be seen.   Rescuers went to the car because they heard a woman's voice calling for help, although the mother had been dead for some time.    Water was filling up in the car but it hadn't reached the car seat, and apparently hypothermia sets in much quicker when a person is wet.     Amazing.

 

Tuesday 10th March

Was looking forward to a pleasant day having crocheting lessons with a group at the Senior Centre.  The instructor - who I have had before - e-mailed to tell me about it, said it was a potluck (ie you take a contribution for lunch) so I knocked up a fruit jelly last night, made a sweet corn salad this morning, then busied myself organising crochet hooks, yarn and what I wanted to make.    I hadn't enrolled, thought it would be alright if I just turned up and paid.   Big Mistake.   If I'd enrolled I would probably have been notified that it was cancelled because no one enrolled.  No one else turned up either.  

 

So the fruit jelly and sweet corn salad are sitting in the church fridge, for tomorrow's meal. 

This is Chaos, the cat from next door before it went AWOL.  I actually took it some time ago and I printed off a copy today at a photo lab and gave it to Donna, so she could take it round the vets' surgeries in town to ask if they had seen it.  I think it will make her feel better if she can feel she is doing something to look for it, but I deep down hope  that Chaos has found a nice home somewhere where it is the centre of attention.    I thought too, that seeing it sitting on my porch of its own free will, she might let go of the notion that it has been kidnapped by one of those gangs from Oklahoma City!

She invited me in to look at the plants she has been propagating for her garden, and I saw she had another dog, so there are three now.   She has had it for a couple of months, which I think is about the time Chaos decided to leave home.   I don't know much about animals but I didn't think cats liked dogs, so is hardly going to want to live with three.

The dog is very small, I can't spell it, but it is the size of an overgrown rat.   She said it belonged to an old man she was looking after, and was only going to have it for a couple of weeks while he was in hospital, but then he was taken into a nursing home.

Norman, Oklahoma is in the news, or more precisely the University is.

I think a Fraternity House is like a Hall of Residence, and there was a video going viral - isn't everything videoed and going viral these days - of a group of students on a bus chanting a song with very ugly, racist words.  The students identified in the video were promptly expelled, but they are so hung up on their "free speech"  here that thousands turned out to protest.  They should have laws like we do prohibiting the inciting of racial hatred, that would put paid to their free speech and racial chants, they would all be in police custody tonight.   And quite rightly, I can't be doing with their free speech.

Also in the news.........................Chinese women are coming to California in their thousands, wearing voluminous dresses to hide the fact that they are pregnant, then giving birth, whereupon the child has an American birth certificate, and citizenship, and ultimately the parents will as well.   It is called "birth tourism" and the police are cracking down on it.

Here the police are raiding a facility where these Chinese people stay, ostensibly on holiday, but actually where they are all busy giving birth.    What puzzles me is the fact that I thought Chinese people were very patriotic, and proud of their culture, I don't know why they want to be American.

 

 

Last Couple of Days

Which have been uneventful except for yesterday, Sunday afternoon, when Bruce and Rosalyn invited me to the American opera 'Susannah' which was performed in one of the theatres on the OBU campus.   It was lovely, and interesting too for its insight into 1950s America.

I was going to paraphrase the synopsis but it was a bit too long, suffice to say it was beautifully performed and sung and I enjoyed it very much.

Oh dear, domestic abuse at the Palace.  Who knew.   According to them Prince Phillip got a bit shirty with Camilla and she threw her gin over him, whereupon he fell back knocking himself on a piece of furniture.  The ear apparently was injured at Sandringham over Christmas, but the fall opened up the wound and blood poured everywhere..   As you can tell I actually took the trouble to read this rubbish.   My theory is that the Queen finally lost it with the old goat (which is what Camilla is alleged to have called him) and she hit him with her handbag.   That's as plausible as their explanation.

 

And elsewhere in the news....

I am sure you have seen this all over your news broadcasts..

Eat your heart out Agatha Christie.

 

 

I've 'sort of' acquired another cat.  It's not a stray, and it is not coming inside.  It belongs to the family in the house opposite, and heaven knows what it's name is.   I thought that privately that is what I will call it -  'Heaven Knows', or maybe HK for short.

Looks quite at home doesn't it.  Bubbles, needless to say, is NOT PLEASED.  She came out on the porch, gave it a long hard glare, stalked back inside with her tail in the air and hasn't spoken to me since.   But she's going to have to suck it up.

 

I expect you have seen this picture as I believe it was taken in Essex.   But it has gone viral, as they say.  I think it is lovely.

Saturday 7th March

I was married on the 7th March in 1959, and as I typed in the date above, I thought "golly me, I would be nearing my Diamond Wedding".   How old is that!!!!

The weather has veered back from freezing to summer..

Sunny, blue skies and in the 60s which is quite warm, compared to what it has been. 

I don't know what it is with the cats round here.   I opened the front door and the cat in the house opposite spotted me, streaked across the road at the speed of light, and before I could step back and shut the door it was in my hallway.    Bubbles had been sound asleep on the sofa, but was immediately up and alert, and fixed me with a "don't-you-even-think-about-it" glare, so wondering how I'd raised such an inhospitable cat I ushered the interloper out.

I wondered if cats perceive a quiet home, and that's why they beat a path to my door, the family opposite has a pit bull and two young children.  As Bubbles won't have anything to do with anyone except me, animal or human,  I know she hasn't been bragging on her cushy lifestyle here.

Today has been a major commemoration .....Obama was there.

I thought it was only the IRA who inflicted Bloody Sundays and Bloody Fridays.  The woman on the right of the picture is the niece of Dr Martin Luther King, and they are commemorating the march from Selma, AL to Montgomery, the state capital,  protesting the disenfranchisement of African Americans.

As the marchers were walking out of Selma they were stopped on a Bridge and state troopers attacked the unarmed marchers with clubs and tear gas to prevent them getting to the capital. Two days later, Martin Luther King Jr. led a symbolic second march, to show solidarity, the marchers were again met by Alabama state police officers, and this time the marchers retreated, avoiding another bloody confrontation.

 

I tend to think that anything that has happened since I have been grown up is "recent" and it beggars belief that as recently as only 50 years ago people of colour didn't have any civil rights.

 

The clocks have just leaped forward, I don't have any choice about tomorrow's services, I am reading at 8 o'clock, I'm debating whether to just stay up, or try and get a little sleep, but I feel wide awake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little Update on the News

Well , I have to find something to do when I wake up at 4am, and it gets to 6.30 and I wonder if daybreak is ever going to come.

Remember her?   In self defence she stabbed her boyfriend 30 times, shot him in the head, then for good measure cut his throat - this is what happens when you think you've met the love of your life and are going to live happily ever after, then he lets you know he is just having a fling and you feel used and trashy, she says, with all the wisdom of her 74 years.    But I digress.

It was the second time a jury has been unable to decide whether she should be executed for his killing, so under Arizona law, she can no longer be sentenced to death.

The judge now has the task of deciding her punishment, and can sentence her either to spend the rest of her life in prison or to give her the possibility of parole after 25 years. The next hearing is set for April 13.

Personally, I don't think she will get parole.   The victims family were loudly weeping in court - and who could blame them - at the thought that she might get out in 25 years.   I think she will be in prison every day for the rest of her life.

And the weather doesn't get any warmer.  We are still in the freezing season. 

Oklahoma is in there between Amarillo in Texas and Little Rock in Arkansas.   And to give you an idea of scale it is 595 miles between the two.    Thinks.....looking at the map.....wonder how long it will take me to drive to Miami in Florida.   And I just looked that up,  oh the wonders of the internet.   It will take (an average person) 22 hours, it is 1418 miles but at the speed I drive I'll arrive a fortnight next Thursday.    Think I'll stay where I am, that's almost like driving from Seaford to John of Groats three times!!!

Well, I' ve rambled on and it is now daylight, so I'll go and catch up with the news.

Friday 5th March

Not been posting lately, probably the weather but I've been feeling a bit depressed.  I got out on Wednesday morning, the roads were clear but was driving to the hospital in a very fine freezing rain which was unnerving me.  At Bill's suggestion I just visited the patients admitted the previous day then hurried home and by the afternoon the snow was falling heavily again.   I hate this weather.  I will NEVER again complain about unrelenting sunshine and 100 degree temperatures.

 

Everything has been cancelled, there was no Kiwanis bake sale on Tuesday, or activities at Emmanuel last night, and no Kiwanis this morning.    Before I knew that though I did knock up something for the kiddos for Wednesday night.

 

I lined the baking tin with Graham crackers.  I don't know if we have those, I hadn't met them before coming here.  Melted butter and brown sugar and stirred in the nuts, poured over the crackers, and baked for 10 minutes.  It's very nice so was munching on that while watching television.  

 

 

The cat however was more interested in the falling snow.  She's a little Democrat; disdains Fox News.

and on said News...............

 

Oh.....my......goodness.   This is not boding well for her 2016 Presidential chances.   All the time she was Secretary of State all her e-mails were sent from a private account, by a private server set up in her house (how does that work?)  So not having the enhanced security of a gov.com account all the nasty rogue regimes in the Middle East could - it is being theorised - hack into the state secrets in her e-mail.     The senator spitting the most feathers is the one in charge of the investigation into the Benghazi attack in Libya.   He is on to this like a dog with a bone, and is not going to let it go.

She has handed over her e-mails but when asked if he has them all, the senator shakes his head with a "who knows" gesture.

 

It is illegal apparently to hold classified information in an unsecured location.   So Mrs Clinton is in a lot of hot water which doesn't look like cooling down anytime soon.   Poor dear.

 

There has been the equivalent of a Tory Party Conference, and these are the current Republican runners in the Presidential election.



 

Ted Cruz is the junior senator for Texas, Rand Paul the senator for Kentucky.  Ben Carson is a retired neurosurgeon.  The only two state governors are Scott Walker from Wisconsin and Jeb Bush, a former governor of Florida, and in my humble opinion I would have thought that being a state governor is the best preparation for running for President.        But who am I to say......

Still on the subject of the 2016 election -

 

Carly Fiorini (sp?)  is hinting strongly that she may run.  She started out in life as a secretary at Hewlett Packard and rose to become CEO.    What they call "living the American dream".



Hilary Clinton is sending out strong hints that she is running as the Democrat candidate.  So good luck with that.  

Sunday morning.

Still indoors, not going anywhere.  I won't say "not doing anything", I've plenty of craft projects going on.   I guess if I really needed to go out I could brush the snow off the car, the road looks a bit icy though.

I'm scrutinising the footprints round the car, wondering if a cat has perhaps taken refuge underneath.

Those icicles are all the way round the house, I'll really hear them when they come crashing down.

Just put some Pilsbury cinnamon buns in the oven, will have a couple for my breakfast.