Category Archives: Editorial

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Planes

Posted on July 16, 2015 | Leave a comment

There’s something about seeing an air show that is powerful and worth keeping in mind.

The warm-up is what I like best as they go off-show and show off.

Tonight, in bed with the shades down I am listening to all the planes land, including one commercial flight. Plane after plane, seconds apart. I have to get back to it.

It’s the back story of all these pilots getting together and when I hear it I can see it. It’s the wind and it has already shifted so I am not hearing any more planes coming in for landing. I think it shifts every two minutes and would not want to be directing planes at this destination.

My vision has been tested this week (big plane coming in) so maybe my hearing has improved. I like to tell you that I remember things and can actually see the planes doing their tricks while I hear them flying in. Please be with our troops and recognize all their work on our behalf. Respectfully, Dee

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RIP Wurli

Posted on July 16, 2015 | 1 comment

Wurli was a friend, a great dog and companion. I am so sorry to know that he’s gone.

This is for Liam:

Wurli, a treasure

For another adventure

Remembered always

This bad Haiku is from your friends across the street, OK I’m guilty. Zoe and I will pour a glass of water on his favorite tree as a tribute. We know where it is. With condolences, Dee

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Puppies and Kittens

Posted on July 13, 2015 | 1 comment

I know they’re born really tiny and are trained to deal with their litter mates for food (milk). But they are blind. They do all this scrambling around for food then do their business and pile up upon each other to sleep. As a human I’ve never done that but understand the togetherness.

That is not what I had in mind a few days ago. My husband was home and we decided to take the dog for a walk together late afternoon as when he’s in town we do “shifts.” I do three, he does two. To go out together was a nice change and reminded me of another couple in town that I admired from behind, a few hundred feet away. walking their dogs early in the morning and I hoped we could have more walks together as we age.

When we finally met I ended up knowing this couple, as they’d hired my father 35 years ago. Their dogs are gone now and I don’t see them on the trail. There’s a history that is not mine to tell. Oh their old dogs were very sugary and spicy.

I tripped off the sidewalk I got installed right across the street on the way home and went down before I could see or say anything. I hit knees, hand, shoulder and then my skull cracked on the pavement. I’ve not been able to somewhat open my eye at all for three days but now it looks awful and I’ve a big goose egg but my vision is intact and it just needs time and care.

Walking across the street in comfy shoes with little tread is an issue, as I’ve also had rheumatoid arthritis for 30 years. I was lucky this time. It’ll take a few weeks to heal but walking around half-blind made me think again of Helen Keller, who I read about often as a child, a heroine and admired along with her teacher, of course.

Tonight I got up at midnight because I couldn’t open my eye. I carefully bathed and rinsed it and it’s open, not all the way. I can walk the dog with the right shoes but wouldn’t take out my car. It is a very limited circumstance and yes, blind people will attack me for taking this stance but standing in your shoes for several days with only one eye and spatial relationships off, plus bruises all over your body may let you know that I care. Miss writing, but wanted to tell you why I haven’t been in touch. Cheers! Dee

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Sinister and Dextrous

Posted on July 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

We lefties are the sinister ones, or sinistre. We’re supposed to be more prone to accidents. The Dextrous ones are the right-handers who rule the world. I always look in movies when someone signs something and does it with the left hand.

My father was forced to change to his right hand as a child. As it was for his four children two of us are lefties and two are righties. He would never make us change and I love him for that.

As a kid I adored the gymnast from the 1972 Olympics, Olga Korbut. I immediately started track and gymnastics at my new school. I wasn’t good at either. The day before practice began in another school my senior year I broke my finger playing basketball with the family after dinner, and had to tell the coach her Captain was on limited duty. I was always afraid of doing an aerial cartwheel in my floor routine. Once I broke my finger I was no longer afraid of air and physics. I didn’t want to hurt my hands!

I am a bit ambidextrous. see the end of that word. As a kid I could bat both ways and still cannot use scissors with my left hand, but I’m a leftie with a chef’s knife.

So, in all my gymnast falls I always caught myself from every apparatus. The left side always wins and I always throw myself forward to keep from hitting the back of my head. Last year I went down on the right. Our old hipless dog and I were on 3″ of ice on a County sidewalk at 6:30 in the morning (I was wearing snow boots with great tread) and I saw her going down, all four paws and lifted her up before she fell. Then I fell and had an 8″ bruise on my right hip for six months.

This year, it was a walk in the park late afternoon with my husband and dog and I didn’t even see it coming. I was reaching for his arm with the dog’s leash in the other hand and my heel went out from under me on the very crosswalk I created. I hit knees, left hand, shoulder and right by my left eye and I’ve the first and only black eye I will ever have. I call it Klutz Week. I get them every five years. Cheers from the one-eyed writer. Dee

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Official Klutz Week

Posted on July 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Every few years I’ve a week where I break things or am injured in some way. This is a doozy. My husband had a meeting yesterday so I took the time to vacuum and dust et al. I moved the centerpiece from our table to another place and broke it and glass went everywhere.

Later in the day we took out the dog together, I took his arm on the crosswalk I had the city and county make a few years ago and slipped and went down hard. As a former gymnast I unfortunately did not protect my head and my left eye is swelling up. I have vision, it’s just hard to see.

I will not be able to drive, will ask my husband to get me an eye patch for now. There’s a nasty bruise on my left knee, yes, already.

Years ago my favorite young boys in the neighborhood challenged this old lady to do a cartwheel in the park. I did one. Then I saw a teaching opportunity and showed them how to do a split. The grass was wet. My shoe slipped out from under me and I pulled a groin muscle. Two weeks on ice. They didn’t know it.

That klutz week allowed me to teach them to stay away from meth dealers that give them expensive gifts, and later lend them a breed book to find Sparky. They brought Sparky, a Jack Russell Terrier home and immediately brought him to meet his Aunt Dee and return my AKC book.

When my dog died after ten years in my care from the shelter, I brought the younger boy aside and told him what happened. It’s a guy thing but he asked every detail of her death and cried. I said he should go out to his big brother and the “gang” and say that Dee yelled at him for something. I think we acted it out. Don’t ever do that again! Otherwise the guys would have made fun of him.

It all shows that sometimes klutz weeks turn into better things. I don’t know about this one or if I’ll be able to write. If this is my last post, farewell. Cheers, Dee

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On My Watch

Posted on July 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

I was a kid just out of college and was thrown into the deep end, without the requisite note from my parents. It was such an exhilarating learning curve and I was scared to death but intrigued.

These fellow legislative analysts were my family for the next few years. I found out early on any legislation I imagined or wrote would affect millions of people. That was a frightening thought. I vowed to do the best for everyone.

My boss, who had done my job before, let me do the grunt work and he went to meetings without me, without even telling me the meetings were about my work. The legislative bill drafting group wrote up potential laws for colleagues. I wrote my own, usually after awakening at 3:00 in the morning, a habit I have decades later. For many, they said they had no changes and good job, girl.

I messed up on a few things. I didn’t see AIDS coming, neither did anyone else but I helped pass legislation on employment and housing and of course it was denied by the senate. Now we have marriages.

I helped NYC by requiring netting on all construction so people on the sidewalks were safe and workers did not fall off concrete platforms.

In the end, I was in the forefront of privacy legislation and put together a team with every committee that had an interest. Mine was cable tv back then and it was really pre-internet. Reader’s Digest killed at the last moment. The bill was 1984. Yes, I’d reserved A.B. 1984 the year before and had gifts for the people who saved that number.

There was hard work on sexual orientation but now there are marriages. Crime victims do not have to sit in the same room as the offender. People who get speeding tickets pay restitution to the state that a criminal owes. I was there near the Son of Sam Law.

Mistakes were made but my heart and brain were good. I get to go to sleep at night knowing that I made a difference in the lives of 34 million people. As a kid, figuring that out, that was and would still be a daunting task. Now I’m retired and get crosswalks and tax refunds. Ah, well, back in the day. Dee

ps My husband put a pad of paper and a pen so if I’ve one of my many great ideas at 3:00 in the morning I can write it down and go back to sleep. I love this guy.

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Scott Walker for President???

Posted on July 8, 2015 | 1 comment

In his budget, yes this Wisconsin governor who tried union-busting a few years ago to make a name for himself, is now running for president. I guess he figures a statewide recall is worth it’s weight in gold as when your name is in the papers, people know your name, good or bad.

President of what I do not know. But it may be the USA. Right now his budget includes a miscellaneous package that:

1, allows payday loan companies to sell insurance, annuities and provide financial advice;

2. eliminates the Freedom of Information Act for information on politicians;

3. changes the living wage law for people working on government projects to minimum wage (that came out but will come back next week);

4. subsidizes energy companies, provides tax benefits for government and church building projects thus melding church and state, something our founding fathers found to be wrong, and give Milwaukee’s county executive carte blanche, even letting him use a parking lot for the infamous art museum for a sports franchise investment property to build upon.

5. and sanitize any reports of police shootings. Yes, police shoot people, white cops shoot Black people. I’ve read that Milwaukee is the most racially divided city in the nation. Think Detroit, then think worse. There are Black and white beaches. Not by official designation but there are no police cars at the white beaches and two huge SWAT vehicles plus patrol cars at the others, where we like to have a burger in the summer.

I’m not even going to say what he thinks about taxes or abortion as I’ve had enough. I lived in this state last year and paid taxes for my husband working out of state and paying full taxes in two states. We were owed a large refund and I got no one on the phone many times so 10 weeks later started with local politicians and they actually gave me a working phone number. A tax guy called me back. I asked if he had any questions on our return. No. We got our IRS return in three weeks. Are there any audit flags? No.

We just don’t want to cut big checks so wait for you to contact us. Government in action, government inaction. Here’s to our next president. We will have moved to another country before he takes office.

This is is not a budget. It is a publicity stunt to get his name out there nationally for being insane and a presidential candidate and be a tea cozy for the tea party. The people who elected him paid for this ad. They pay his salary and those of his minions. He is supposed to work for the people of Wisconsin, not just himself. I require more from the President of the United States. Politically yours, Dee

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Management/Moose

Posted on July 8, 2015 | Leave a comment

One person was found in violation of corporate rules. This resident demanded the institution tell that every resident deserved notice that they were in violation as well.

The company actually granted the wish. I think they might have agreed between adopting Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when they went to poppy-land.

It was about decorations. I’ve a welcome mat and a red/white/blue star for July 4 that a neighbor’s grand-daughter, from our kitchen one-step stool proudly hung for us shortly before Independence Day. Usually I’ve the Moose or jingle bells or spring birds hanging on that hook.

I’ve since been forgiven for these transgressions. They were not sins. The only sin is that they let the person who grossly transgressed upon common areas hold them up and then made them tell us we were all guilty. They capitulated so sent us all notices of of our sins of having a welcome mat or July 4th star on the door (with a Command strip, of course, not a nail).

This person is probably still here and holding all of us hostage. This person required notice to all residents that we were all guilty and we were deemed so. That is wrong. I believe we have a right to live our lives with a seasonal door ornament (moose, jingle bells, Independence Day) and door mat to dry boots. My husband hates my moose/bear/evergreen door ornament because it clangs. Oh, well. I have a spring arrangement too…..Cheers, Dee

ps No, I only have four door ornaments. I don’t add, jingle bells are seasonal. Please give neighbors space. I don’t place them on the door at the same time! Dee

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Learning

Posted on July 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

While my physicist/engineer husband may never learn to change a roll of toilet paper, at least he puts the toilet seat down 99,998 times out of 10K. That’s good enough for me.

The other day I picked a few herbs from the terrace and mixed them by hand with room temperature unsalted butter. I scraped them into parchment paper into a log, twisted the ends and placed the log into the frig.

The next day, this complete non-cook (he gets ice and pours Dr. Pepper or water into a glass) looked at my steak set-up and said “Oh, a compound butter!”

He tells everyone that I have, over 14 years, created a food snob. I agree. In ten years he’ll have read Harold McGee and know all the scientific principles of food, more than I do after culinary school. But like the toilet paper roll, he’ll not use it in the kitchen, only to mess with my mind as he watches me make dinner. Ah, well, don’t mess with what you have. Cheers! Dee

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Squeaker

Posted on July 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

Dear Reader/Writer,

There is one toy in our dog Zoe’s life. It is currently a “lacy” Kong-like indestructible shell for a latex gorilla with a squeaker. She has ruined every toy we ever bought her except this one. OK, the old one started to disintegrate after ten years of use. She’s 11 1/2 now so this one, along with her collars, should be good for life.

She can squeak the latex gorilla inside of Precious or Monkey Ball but can’t get to it through the shell. Genius. My husband’s idea when we were losing stuffed animals like crazy and “mommy” was gathering up batting from the floors and badly sewing the stuffed animals up in what I call surgery.

There’s another squeaker. Our dog sleeps on our bed, except if she’s touched by a foot or the sun starts rising. Then she goes UBD (under bed dog) until I get up early to take her out and feed her. Or she jumps down in error and whines by my pillow to “Otis” her up again. That’s what I did at 2:30 this morning.

Of late, I get up really early 2-4 a.m. and close over the bedroom door (I cannot shut it because she needs to be able to see her “pack” at all times to herd us. Lately, about an hour after I move to the living room or den, she squeaks the door for a while. She asks and I tell her it’s OK to come out then I shut the door to let my husband sleep until the hour he’s set his alarm for a meeting.

Yesterday, hubby was fixing the gate apparatus on my SUV as it is sticking and once it flew open on the road, that was scary. I asked him to try the hinges on the bedroom door to keep it from squeaking. He did and didn’t make a mess at all but the paper towels he used to clean up the drips smell like strong oil (stronger than 3-in-one) and I’ll clean the frig as soon as it’s light out and get rid of that trash because the smell will overcome anything I cook.

Good news is that my car gate is fixed for maybe a year, and the bedroom door no longer squeaks making life for all of us better. Zoe may squeak her Precious 1,000 times a day but it’s her treat and it no longer gives me a headache! Dee

 

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