Happy Birthday C.!

My friend C. is celebrating a birthday today.  May he live long and prosper.

This is from my sister, J., it made me laugh:
the Ethiopians next door bought this old suped-up, wood-trimmed minivan...  Artistically rendered on the van are: Clark Cable and Vivian Leigh, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, The Duke, and others.  They are so proud of this car.  Every weekend they have this homeless guy who wanders around the neighborhood wash it, and then they spend the rest of the day playing some arabesque music and cleaning the inside.  The inside doesn't have back seats, mind you.  Just black and white checkered linoleum and a bar covered with velvet.  That's right.  A bar.  Covered with Velvet.

I want a bar covered in velvet.  Over it I shall hang my velvet Elvis.  Vive le Roi.

Floating around in my brain is something of a timeline for the next two years.  No action has been taken, but I have a plan.  There’s something settling in that.  Also, I think my trip to Minnesota helped.  I think spending time recently with my favorites has helped.  A lovely evening with my parents and good German beer helped.  No matter what the origination, finally there’s a clearing of the clouds.  I’ve been on this mental roller coaster for so long and it is nice to be again on the platform. 

Also, watching Barak Obama speak last night helped.  I wanted to jump off the couch and join the standing ovation.  Shake my pom poms.  Thought better of it, but the feeling was there.  No wonder he is the new Dem darling.  I now want to move to Illinois so that I can vote for him and call him Senator.  It would be a nice change to have a representative who could truly represent my views.  As it stands, I must rely on the closet Republican, Mr. Chambliss, and my community's Congressman, John Linder.  Mildly put, these gentlemen and I do not share the same views on, oh, most anything.  So, maybe I should move to Chicago after all...