Armistice - And Irony

I can see them yet, as they marched away,
So debonair, so brave, so gay!
I can see them yet, as they turned to wave,
The smiles erased from their faces grave.
And as I stood there, turned to stone,
The sun's last glint from their rifles shone.

I can still see my Mother, with face so white
And my Father, standing so still,
Trying to think that all was right,
Trying to feel like it was God's will.
Yes, we all tried to be as brave as they,
As my husband and brother marched away.

After many a weary month and long
Came the news, more cheering than the happiest song.
The whistles were blowing, the bells were ringing.
Everywhere people were shouting and singing.
"The War is over at last" cried they,
And the sad old World became hysteric'ly gay.
We looked at each other through tears of joy
And Mother murmered softly, "My boy, my boy!".

Happy plans for their return we made.
I tremble even now, as these mem'ries fade.
"Killed in action", the telegram bore.
"Killed in action"; weary brain repeated o'er and o'er.
Yes, the bells were ringing,
They should have tolled!
The sound of bells will turn me faint and cold
Forevermore.
My brother had died the day before.

Josephine Abby Lamb Baker

My great-uncle "Harry" Lamb never came home. He was my grandfather's best friend.

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Little Pond

Here we go again.

With our stock at 1/7 of its January 2008 value, there will be layoffs, right before Christmas.

This time there's a buyout offer. We have the option of voluntarily leaving and getting the same package. Most of us don't qualify for Social Security, and with the economy tanking, we aren't likely to find work elsewhere.

Past layoffs were based on seniority: new people were selected, it was temporary, and after several weeks, they could expect to return.

This time, though, it's severance, and the selection process is a different calculation. Whatever job they deem superfluous or too costly gets the ax. "Too costly" could include old-timers who are paid more than newbies. After thirteen years, I am an old timer; real old timers got it last year.

As my daughter, the VeggieGirl, noted: I am always on notice for layoff, so what's the difference? The difference is that I have been caught in several layoffs in my life, and we never quite recover. They lay waste to our lifestyle, ruin our credit, and in general, trash my self-esteem.

On the other hand, frequent layoffs tend to leave survivors glad to be working. Even if they are tough on the nerves.

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Little Pond

Why I am still glad I didn't vote Obama.

Yeah, I know: we gotta get behind him. Okay, that is not a problem. This is the first election in a long time that was really electric. I wanted my guy, McCain to win, and still believe that he was the best man, with the much more impressive political record and life experience to back it up.

Still, Barack Obama is in, and I not devastated. He seems a good guy, a little youngish to my tastes, but the deed is done.

Let the president-elect be on notice: half of all citizen voters did not feel he was the man for the job, and were not impressed with his ideology.

Mr. Obama has a lot to prove. He'd better rest up over the next two months.

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I am dismayed by the anti-gay marriage balloting in California. How could they have voted down a law that the people essentially wanted?

Word is that the Church of LDS and other religious right groups pushed and shoved from both inside and outside the state. I can't say it's wrong, because only the Californians voted.

Andrew Sullivan, one of my blog ancestors, had this to say.

And afterwards, this.

Let's hope he's right.

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Little Pond

If you haven't voted,

...what are you doing surfing the Internet?



Get out and vote!

Two books.

As of this morning, I am writing two books. My latest Josephine book is going slowly, even though I am not agonizing over every little detail.

Something else was bothering me, impeding its progress.

I finally got some relief just before I got out of bed: the new book began spilling out.

It's too early to say much, but this one will be an historical novel. The dragon books required so much research, that I no longer have time for video games. The scouring for proper details has awakened a long-dormant aspect of my writer's self.

Research is something I do automatically on just about everything, even simple trivia questions. When I work a crossword puzzle, it seems a waste if I don't learn something new each time. It's my policy to look up words I don't recognize. Occasionally, if time allows, I will Google an answer that happened without my knowing it.

For instance, this morning I learned about Ringolevio, a street game. We played it, too, only in the snow. We called it Fox and Geese, unaware of the board games. I never heard of Ringolevio, but sure enough, there were the same rules, right down to the rescue of trapped geese.

So my new book will require a huge amount of research, and I will be happily humming along for many, many months before I can pull it together enough to talk about it.

Isn't serendipity a joy?

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Little Pond

R e - E l e c t

K a t i e H u g h e s

If you need a handicapped person's hanger here in Chemung County, you already know why.

Ms. Hughes is in the curious habit of calling people just before their hanger expires, so they can renew in plenty of time.

Ms. Hughes seems to be in the habit of going above and beyond her duties, just as a matter of course.

Ms. Hughes' self-effacing, sweetly personal manner simplifies what could otherwise be a difficult, very trying jaunt through the local bureaucracy.

If you need a handicapped person's hanger here in Chemung County, you already know that.

Re-elect Katie Hughes.

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Little Pond

Sarah Palin: Not just another dress-up doll.

It wasn't enough that the Dems had to dredge up the wardrobe costs. As if they don't carefully watch each and every tide of opinion on that. After all, Ms. Obama went on TV in a cheap dress to prove a point. Big, hairy deal. Bet she's dressed to the 9's (like $900) any other time.

No, it was so important to bring up the Palins kids' travel, too. Alaska is a big country, so people travel by plane. Ergo the Palin kids will often go by air.

Ahh, as pointed out by Husband RJ, the other candidates don't waste government money on their kids.

Bam! Right about there she won my vote. All those men treat their kids as props for election purposes, barring none. But they can't be bothered to fly them around enough to stay with Daddy and Mommy the rest of the time.

Sarah may be a finagler, somewhat shady at times, in her role as Governor of Alaska. She may have allowed the GOP to dress her like a paper-doll Barbie, her kids and all. She may even shoot moose from an airplane (not nuts about that one, especially, although I'm pro-hunting).

But her kids come first. Outside of politics, there are few women who leave their kids on the back burner, a habitual sin on the mens' parts, incumbent included. My kids come first; her kids come first.

Let's see. Who would be a perfect ally of mothers to daily influence our next president, and perhaps eventually become the president?

Sarah Palin has my vote.

Sorry, RJ. (Actually, I'm not sorry at all!)

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Little Pond

The Great Cat/Squirrel/Dog Standoff

You will probably need to double-click this one. The cat, left, saw me first, at a huge distance. I began taking photos much farther back, just to zoom in and identify the animal on the fence.

The squirrel, coming in on the right barrier, was running up to the cat--Lord knows why--and suddenly backtracked. Wonder what it thought the cat was? Ellie saw the squirrel and began to run to the fence. Ellie never saw the cat, and the cat never seemed bothered by the dog. The cat watched me the entire time.

Eventually the squirrel jumped into the brush and trees. Ellie, still ignoring the cat, headed for the Tracker, just behind the levee to the left. The cat finally could stand it no longer and ran down to the river, out of sight at right.

I seem to have been the only one aware of all three critters.

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Little Pond

Am I the only one?

I feel so disappointed in the GOP vice presidential candidate.

She's not a bad person, but surely we could have found someone more seasoned than Palin.

And it isn't such a bad thing that she's been found to have abused her power, albeit not illegally. We really need someone willing to push the limits, something that I think Cheney does rather well.

I don't even mind her hauling around the baby in the belly pack, although I don't imagine all that close contact with the crowds is good for the kid.

It just seems to me that she was chosen simply for being a conservative woman. She reminds me of some of the fluffy males that have been offered in earlier elections. Dan Quayle comes to mind. John Edwards, another, only for the Democrats.

How serious is she? And why is it so difficult to find a tough, no-nonsense person for Vice President?

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Little Pond

Our parents know these things.

My mother celebrated her 78th birthday Friday. A very nasty head cold was settling in my chest and kept me from making my usual pilgrimage to Cappy's for a card. It was better to call and just talk.

A little into the conversation we began to discuss the economic downturn and the ever-impending newspaper-business's demise. We frequently update one another on the the journalistic misfortunes of our respective local areas.

I don't have a wonderfully paying job at the paper. In Prepress we have humble Production positions that are lately being culled out, pared down and replaced by either new technology or cheaper, overseas labor. In advertising, however, there is no substitute for a sharp eye and a commonsense command of everyday printed English. That is what I have and what keeps me working.

When advertising drops, as it has--off and on-- for the last few years, then my job is less secure. When I mentioned this to my mother, she countered with the fear regarding the pension that funds their retirement. Pensions are being cut right and left, and mine will likely also disappear before I can tap it.

Then she said something that was very characteristic of her, and at the same time quite unexpected:

"Well, we'll all manage through this. We are tough."

The last time I heard this, I was going through a abysmally painful depression, haunted by thoughts of ending it all. My mother jacked me up with "We don't do that sort of thing. We are tough." At the time I responded that I most certainly was not.

You see, I was mentally ill--clinically depressed--and feeling quite fragile. Seemed a mean thing to say to someone who felt like the world was ending.

The world did not end. I found a wonderful psychiatrist who healed me with the proper antidepressants and entered a no-nonsense self-help program that seemed tailor-made for me.

These day, I am emotionally well, productive, and usually fairly happy. The crisis was overcome and the awful times passed into the realm of memory and experience.

We are all facing difficult times. The very worst could actually happen: loss of job, home and face, and that feels untenable and almost like the end of the world.

I know better now. It might be awful, difficult and soul-searing, but it won't be the end of the world. We will do what we have to do, and we will survive.

We will all manage, or stumble our way, through this.

We are tough.

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Little Pond

The Autumnal Equinox

It's a time when it is technically autumn, but still feels like summer. Sure, I needed a raincoat, but under it I was sweating.

Ellie hates the rain, but she loves the river. This morning, though, she largely avoided her usual swim.

Fall on the Chemung River.

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Little Pond

Links to Shutterbuggery

If you'll forgive the rude pun, these represent my latest round of photos.

When Ellie was here, we went to the River. She doesn't go in anymore.

Then she returned to her other home, so I visited the Chemung on my own, looking for Fall.

Husband RJ announced that we could expect a frost this week. I ran my camera out back to shoot the lovely morning glories before they got nipped.

Maybe it's the change of season, or maybe it's old age. Even though I start out at a brisk pace, I return from each trip lamer than before. It's a very good thing my camera pod is reinforced with oak. More and more, I use it for supporting the broken old bod, rather than the Canon.

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Little Pond

Idyll

Traveled with Ellie to find a dry spot for walking. This is up in Elmira Heights; we visit whenever I need to bring my shoes to Limoncelli, the cobbler, on 14th Street.

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Little Pond

Unhappy anniversary.

On this day seven years ago, my husband called me from work and said, "You'd better turn on the television." I'll never forget it; it was a bright, sunny day in the city.

I spent the next few days trying to find a girlfriend who worked in the area. Thank heavens, she had a bug and stayed home in Queens to visit the doctor instead.

The only time I ever visited the WTC, there was a spider-man stunt that shut down the elevators. He had some sort of ladder or chain he attached to the side of the building and was climbing it.

Speaking of Spiderman: I have a tiny disk with the original trailer that was pulled after the attacks. It doesn't play on my current Presario; I guess it doesn't like Vista. The original trailer showed Spidey catching bad guys in a helicopter; he slings a web between the twin towers.

I wish I could watch that trailer again.

(Ha! Here it is!)

Much, much more, I wish we could visit the towers again.

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Little Pond

Palin Pregnancy?

Every time I see that headline it strikes me as a screaming error.

The candidate herself is not pregnant; her daughter is.

If you are very conservative, you may see her daughter's pregnancy as a defect, just as surely as if she herself were the unwed mother.

To me, it's neither here nor there. Frankly, I'd rather they were not pushing a wedding right now on the kids. It's not the worst reason to marry, but a baby is not the best reason, either.

If Bristol were my daughter, we'd be planning the baby without the wedding. Seventeen seems too young for marriage. Maybe not, but I don't see it as an ideal time to take it on. In fact, I only know one couple who wed that young, or almost that young, and the marriage lasted. They may still be married, but I don't know.

Not exactly: "Good for you, Ms. Palin!" She's dealing and that's enough for now.

Too bad about the high-profile wedding, though.

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Little Pond