I'm grateful for: the prospect of a quieter household; really yummy homemade cupcakes; fried potatoes.

I got sucked into a bit of a political discussion tonight. Nothing too terrible, my son-in-law sent around a bit of ACLU propaganda to a group of people. Someone else in the group responded to all, with a relatively balanced and thoughtful rebuttal, then felt the need to end it, apparently, covering his back by saying he wasn't a Bush supporter. I couldn't keep myself to myself. Someday I'll learn. But I wrote a fairly reasonable bit about what is wrong with needing to establish your bona fides as being 'anti-Bush' before you can disagree with a liberal, or left-wing cause.

It's not good. If you have to establish that you are on the same side as someone before it is okay to disagree with them, then there is no political discourse in this country. If merely acknowledging that there is another way of looking at something automatically puts you on the other side, as 'the enemy' then there is no reason left in any political discussion.

I didn't talk about it too much, but for a long time at the beginning of the primary politicking, I had absolutely no clue about how the Republican candidates were shaping up. I didn't even know who some of them WERE. RS explained it to me by telling me that one particular news source was considered to be extremely right-wing because they reported on the Republican primary At All. Oooo-kay.

Not to worry, I have since found out that McCain is the apparent Republican choice, or rather the last man standing. I, like so many others who cast their votes for the president, would like there to be a candidate, any candidate, that I would actually like to vote FOR. As it is, I doubt I will take my more ordinary cop-out of voting for whoever the Libertarian candidate is, but the election is months away. So, I guess I'll see.

It's not impossible I would vote for a democrat. I have in the past. I am waiting to see who wins that bout of fisticuffs before I even think about it, though. It's just a yuck field, anyway you look at it.

There I go, offending people all over the world again. *very big grin*

I can't say I haven't much to write about, but I'm unlikely to be writing much of it. Besides it being after 4am, I am just extremely worn out. I'm typing on my desktop computer, and the keyboard is rather unresponsive, which doesn't help. TH is supposed to find out about the laptop computer tomorrow. I HOPE it is ready to come home. PLEASE Hashem!

My room is a complete disaster due to having to move the desktop to my bed table, then all the wiring being all wrong, and my easy chair now can't be reached at all, and I can't have the computer on the preferred side of my bed, and, it's all rotten. Pout.

We have a soldier staying with us for the weekend (which ends tomorrow morning. Sunday is our Monday). She was in Jerusalem and unable to stay there, and needed someplace to go. A friend phoned us and she took the bus out and here she is.

There is something about having people over that makes me very aware of so many of the things I don't like about myself. Rather than talking about how I don't like myself, or the specific things I did/said that bother me, I need to note that this happens pretty much every time anyone new comes to my home. Not so much when I meet new people when I am out, but that usually means they are much less important.

So this soldier is a lovely girl, smart, educated, a delightful person to have around mostly. What struck me is how very much she is like D2. She doesn't look at all like D2, but her background is so similar it is scary (her mother also has M.S. and was dx'd when she was six). She's here alone, which D2 would have been if we hadn't jumped on the plane with her. Which is not a difference in the two of them, but in the different situations of the families. She also has a vast store of knowledge, and can't seem to stop herself correcting others whenever there is any part of a conversation she can find a fault in. NOT the most endearing trait, although she was actually quite polite about it. And it is somewhat normal in young people of that age (I remember...) And it is JUST like D2. Of course, D2 doesn't actually correct me much. I managed to take it in good part, but I may have left her feeling somewhat frustrated in refusing to be sucked in to any digressions - like arguing about the differences between Arabs, Bedouin and Druze when I'd been talking about how well TH has gotten on with the Bedu down here.

I felt a little bad, both because I know how frustrating that can feel, and also because she may well have had some interesting things to say, had I allowed her to 'instruct' me. *sigh* Some things don't get any less complicated just because you are older, and can understand another person's point of view while taking care of yourself.

Another time I might well have been less determined to uphold my right to politeness and respect in casual conversation in order to make her feel more at home, and perhaps to learn what she had to offer. This weekend, I'm still really suffering with my body having hit a new low, and also with grody flashbacks from hell.

Regardless of all that, we all enjoyed having her here, and did what we could to make her comfortable and make her stay pleasant. Soldiers want a few very basic things when they first get away - sleep, clean laundry, something decent and hopefully hot to eat. That, at least, we could provide. She's off way early tomorrow, so I won't see her again probably. We all let her know we'd like her to come back. Maybe she'll surprize me and come by again sometime, but I rather think she won't. A pity. I'd be really curious for D2 to meet her, and to find out what D2 thinks of her. Just because they are so amazingly alike doesn't mean they would get on, at all. I'm curious.

Tomorrow S1 is going up north to begin his job in Petakh Tikvah. We are all hoping it works out better for him than it did for D2. S1 is convinced it will, because she really doesn't understand the boy and his PTSD. True, she doesn't. I think she handled it all remarkably well. What S1 doesn't get is that it wasn't the boy that made the job not work - it was the conditions - no room of her own, a household of nightowls, and D2 extremely a day person. A morning person. Lots of noise and fuss at all hours. There often being no food in the house, or other basics not being taken care of by the mom. I think S1 will have less problems with those sorts of things, so maybe he will be okay there. There is no knowing now, but I know he is happy to be living someplace not with his parents, is happy at the prospect of making some money, and I am happy at the prospect of a less crowded homelife.

I'm fantasizing that once he is gone, things will become SO much calmer here. Which they may well. I'll miss him, but it's nothing like his being on the other side of an ocean. And he is not an easy person to live with. Will have to see.

I'm running out of steam, my body can no longer stay up and I can't type holding my hands in the air. I need my laptop back. I didn't get any sleep last night because of one of the dogs, so I kicked all the animals out of here tonight, and now I am missing them. Can't win.

Just for the record, I didn't make it out to feed the critters, or manage to exercise the last two days. But I was doing really well up to then. I'm hopeful about tomorrow. As long as I can get *some* sleep tonight.

I'm listening to Woody Guthrie: Jesse James

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06