Caucusoidal Maniacs

My State caucuses were today. The one I attended was close-packed with people, but not at all a madhouse. I got there early and helped to set up and sign people in. This was Zbig`s first caucus, he isn`t 18 yet, but will turn 18 before the general election. That made him eligible to participate.

Good weather helped with the turnout, as did the neck and neck race between Clinton and Obama, coming out of Super Tuesday. If my precinct is any indication of a trend, the northwest is going heavily toward Obama. I`m torn. I like Clinton too, maybe more. I signed in uncommitted, and advanced as a delegate to the next level. This is new for me, I`ve always decided early in previous years. Being uncommitted means becoming a hot property. Other factions will try to sweet talk me into joining them.

Right now emails from Obama supporters are dropping into my email box at a rate around once a minute. Ping, ping, ping. I admire their passion.

Accuity Resolution

WHEREAS
I found myself in need of new eye wear  so that I can read books and newspapers. (Yes, something other than  your lovely journals.)

AND WHEREAS
I have a history of walking out of LENSCRAFTERS with receipts for five hundred dollar bits of plastic and wire.

AND WHEREAS
Spending less makes sense for me.

AND WHEREAS
http://www.39dollarglasses.com/ and similar sites are just a click away.

AND WHEREAS
Some of them have further discounts if you add a coupon code to your order.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED
That ordering new glasses on line is worth a try.



I will let you know if the resultant product at all allows me to see.
Can you tell that it's caucus season?

Raucous

I suddenly have the ability to feel full feel full after meals. Not stuffed full, but not focusing on what else looks good. Last night I bought raw almond butter and unsweetened chocolate and a bag of 4 avocados. But when I got home, all I ate was two peaches, and a cut up yellow pepper. The vegan-ness is unsettling my daughter a little bit. But I had already made chicken-vegetable stew for her, because I`m not pushing this at all. As a still growing kid, being an omnivore can be a good thing.
There have been a few news stories lately about nutrition featuring the phrase "food deserts." This refers to urban areas without grocery chain stores or farmers markets. Residents have to rely entirely on convenience stores where most of the foods sold are pre-packaged items with long shelf lives. By contrast, I am able to choose between so many fresh things, even now in February with sleet falling, and another snow storm threatening. I feel so blessed.

where my windshield wipers be at?

I`m at a table next to the book store. I just got my eyes checked, and I can`t drive yet because the atropine drops that the optometrist used haven`t worn off yet. Eljay looks blurry. I brought some strips of a yellow bell pepper spread with peanut butter. I am munching on those along with a diet pepsi. Friday I read a slew of blogs about raw food diets and I have been somewhat trying that for the past few days. Obviously the soft drink doesn`t fit the category. The peanut butter is vegan, but not raw. Most of the hard core raw people don`t seem to eat legumes of any kind. I don`t think I would want to go that far. I like fresh peas, I`ve blended frozen peas into a raw dip.

Could I do it? Go completely raw. Probably not entirely. I might still make chicken soup occasionally. And I`m not going to deprive the PrissKids of any categories of food. They don`t have any of the eating whackiness that I do, and they seem to understand moderation. They do seem unable to ever have leftover pizza, but that is a singular exception. After avoiding dairy and bread products for a few days, I feel kind of better all over. That`s amazing for me. I haven`t really written about my pain issues here, but I have some long-term problems. Sometimes they are compounded by a general achy all over feeling, so to have relief from that overlay makes a huge difference. Yesterday I made guacamole and ate it on thin slices of zucchini. It felt so free to be able to have as much as I wanted without worrying about the calories in crackers, or in some main dish.

Raw for the time being, or semi-raw. If you want to take me out for Maine lobster I may make an exception :)

PS -Things are still blurry.
PPS- Still blurry and it`s after 6PM They said it would be 2 hours!

Tu BShevat and Sonnets

My daughter asked me if I knew any words that rhymed with "lost." Other than using a rhyming dictionary, the most obvious method is to go through the alphabet: bossed, cost, dossed. Is dossed a word? I think it is, and an online dictionary says that it means going to bed. Which is perfect for poetry where the subject might want to bunk down, perchance to dream. And what about "dost?" The Internet says it is an archaic form of "does," I do, he dost. OK, yes, that sounds familiar, very "Prince and the Pauper." It turns out that she was writing a sonnet.

The main thing that I remembered about sonnets was that Sylvia Plath had science class anxiety, and she got her counselor to excuse her from having to enroll. But she found the atmosphere in study hall to be something like Mark Twain`s description of a Lacrosse game: two armies beating each other with sticks, with a hard missile occasionally denting someone`s head. So she asked the chemistry teacher if she could audit his class, and spent the sessions looking up to smile sweetly at him while writing sonnets and villanelles.

There are roughly three styles of sonnet, with the Shakespearean form being the favorite of ninth-graders. Maddy showed me a few well-known examples, all of which I recognized. I tried reading one out loud, and she said that I was not following the soft/hard pattern of iambic pentameter. Her English teacher recommends "head banging" to get the rhythm right. This rhythm can also be achieved by channeling Bela Lugosi, or the Sesame Street Count, or any Italian speaker. Also, each line must have ten syllables.

Your teacher said that you should bang your head
But I prefer to wave my arm instead

Yes, incorporating movement really did allow me to get into the sonnet groove. And as I shall be going to a service tomorrow where everyone has been asked to bring a rock or a feather or a quotation
OR A POEM
It seems only fitting to appear with my first ever Sonnetic effort.


today we mark the new year of the trees
wet sap awakens, hidden within bark
in two months the stubborn leaf buds it frees
shall burst knifelike and pallid in the park

soon greenish fronds seek sun to synthesize
added mass of stems, that bloom and set seed
winter shards cover up in springtime guise
avian creatures weave a house of reed

plantlike, sometimes emotion hibernates
when weather harsh restricts love`s easy flow
until hormonal heat initiates
capillary action`s flowery show

red rose hips in a scape barren of sprigs
a lone preserve: fall`s fruit upon stark twigs

THE LOLCAT CONVENTION

(Sing this to the tune of Rainbow Connection by Paul Williams)

Why would I write a second
Song about LOLCATS
And places that they like to hide?
LOLCATS are characters
That live on the Internet
We try to take them in stride
Sneaky and saccharine
yet somehow alluring
With them we identify

Soon they will mass for
A LOLCAT convention
In a hotel of one mile high

LOLCATS are on your couch
Shedding on your cushions
They say it enhances decor
Now at your computer desk
One opens your browser
www.worldorfur
Soon they have altered your
Co-op shopping list
Pasting in cream over soy

LOLCATS just may achieve
Concatenation
Perhaps I should send an envoy

It`s easy to see that they
Are primal and clever
Feral, ferocious and sweet
LOLCATS are not afraid
To face adversaries
LOLCATS don`t shirk to compete
Daily I tune into news of disaster
Will major countries collide?

Somewhere the LOLCATs plot world domination
Let`s go along for the ride!

Oz Eggmore? I know Ozymandius! He's Lady Eggmore's grandson.

So there was no interpretive dancing.

There wasn't even any circle dancing.

But there were cookies and latkes and stories and songs

Including one surprising new song. The lyrics were about flickering candles.

Our song leader played a few bars on the electric keyboard. The tune was strangely familiar. It had a shrill syncopated honky-tonk feel to it. I started to laugh. A few people looked at me oddly. How could notes without words be funny? I looked over at my daughter. She was laughing too.

Maddy said: do you know what this is?

 I replied: Peter Cottontail!

She said: I know!

The vamp bars concluded. As we launched into the words, we both applied that slight southwestern rasp to our vowel sounds best befitting the style of the music.

Happy Holidays from Priss Prisstofferson 21314 to Blogshares and to all of my readers near and far!




 

Another Day, another candidate

Fred Thompson seems to be slightly brain-damaged. Not to a degree of vegetable-itude, but there are clues in his speaking style that suggest permanent effects of a few solid knocks to the head. Oh look, the Google tells me that his spin organizations are bragging about his High
School football experience, and specifically that he wasn’t concerned when he got knocked down. Well, commendations on a non-whiny demeanor, but consolations on the attendant loss of emotional expression and the reduction in sharpness of enunciation. Has any capacity for compassion, conservative or otherwise, been retained? This year many of the Republican hopefuls exude an air of physical frailty. The one exception is Giuliani, with his cardio-fitness and irritating perkiness. Last week I saw several magazine covers with illustrations of Giuliani along with Clinton and Obama. It was interesting that they didn't include Romney. Was Romney omitted from the spotlight out of predjudice, or are publishers trying to sell Giuliani as a psuedo-Democrat, as the perfect middle of the road-er, simply because he is from the east coast? If he were elected, he would support whatever the republicans in Congress asked him to. The press may try to assign him the perception of having good intentions, but he would sign the same bills that any other Republican would.

But I've ventured into policy and I wanted to talk about style. Thompson is seen as the one hope to draw in those non-denominational fundamentalist family values voters who the regressive tax policy, anti-health care, anti-school proponents can't win without. His religious affiliation is one they share, and the halting speech adds folksiness to his image. Primary voters don't make their choices based on who they think will do well across the country, they look at the issues and at how candidates talk about them. If Romney should become the nominee, it is going to be fun to watch the right regroup to embrace him, and float third-party candidates, and even vote for church-going Democrats who value their families.