The Stepford Wives Become Desperate Housewives

Headline: Mrs. Bush with While House message

It is nice to find out that Laura Bush might actually be a true human, and not a clone created to sound like a wife. She actually can talk and walk on her own. The Stand by Your Man of the first term does have some thoughts of her own. Maybe the Stepford Wives have actually turned into the Desperate Housewives.

Speaking of cloning, does our President really want the science brain drain to leave the United States? If he continues to pursue his fundamentalist policies on issues like stem cell research, and if the states continue to pass laws to teach non-evolutionary theories, our best minds will need to leave the US to practise legitimate research and to learn real science.

The Dresser Drawer

I hadn’t spent any real time at mom’s house for years. It had always seemed so much easier to have her come over to our house. Here the kids had their own activities and friends and my husband could go about his life relatively undisturbed. It seemed to make the most sense. But today, she called and asked me to come over and help her organize the photograph drawer. It seemed like a strange request, and I spent hours fretting about what was the real underlying agenda for the day, and organizing pictures seemed like the least likely motivation for this summons. I imagined all sorts of conversations; problems with her health; problems with her finances; plans to move; marry. My mind was just all over the map on what was the real meaning of this invitation.

The bottom drawer of the dresser had always been full of photographs. It contained several lifetimes all lying in piles, packed of memories and memories forgotten. Mom kept everything, and organized nothing. The pictures remained unlabeled, thrown into the drawer, waiting for that rainy day when there would be nothing else to do. As a kid, I always loved that drawer. I would pull it out, and spend hours going through the photographs of people somehow related to me. In a funny way, it was the lack of organization and labels, the ability to just wander through the loose pictures, that let me add the depth and colour to these two dimensional figures.

As I enter the house, I am surprised to actually find mom organizing the photographs. I get us both cups of coffee, and sit with her and I begin to look through the piles she has started. As I do this, my suspicions melt away. I begin to believe that what she wanted was my company in this nostalgic journey she had begun.

Sitting on one side, are photos of my parents when they were still together. They both were so young looking. I could never imagine my parents being that young, nor looking so happy together. I find my favourite, the one with the two of them standing in front of their 1957 hard top thunderbird convertible, mom in her pedal pushers; my dad in his suspenders and black fedora hat. I use to imagine that they were always together like that. I begin to tell mom about my imaginary stories around the pictures. We can’t help laughing at my Capri pants I am wearing, the modern day pedal pushers.

She is carefully putting together piles of pictures of my sister and me. Right on top is a picture from my fifth grade, the one of my three best friends all with their medals for completing and passing the President Kennedy’s physical fitness test. It brings back the memories of the dreaded 600 yard dash and the even more dreaded bar hanging. I am sure I was not the only fifth grader that didn’t pass that test, but I don’t remember anyone else failing with me. Funny how looking at the pictures, I can still remember how embarrassed I felt that I could not hold myself up on the bars for the required time period. I can still feel the red seeping into my face while I sat back and everyone else received their medal. I felt like a complete failure, sure I would never recover from my inability to pass the PE test.

I start talking to mom about my agonies in fifth grade. Memories flooding back, of feeling like the outcast. It seemed to me I was the only one in my class with divorced parents, the only one whose mother worked full time, and the only one that could not pass the physical fitness test. We both remember that period as a pain-filled time of growing up. My mother, all of a sudden finding herself divorced with two young kids to support, and me, struggling to fit in.

The time seems to just fly by as we both juggle with memories and share stories. The afternoon is gone, and it is time for me to head home. I invite mom to come home with me for dinner. As we head out, the pictures remain in their piles in and around the dresser drawer. I guess they will wait until a rainy day, when we have nothing else to do.

Matrimony - The 51st State

“I do.” Did I really say that? I must have, the justice announced we are now husband and wife. Didn’t anyone object? Stan is looking at me, smiling. This man smiling so broadly has become my fourth husband. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me, fool me a third and then a fourth time, I guess I have no shame. I have entered into that thing they call the state of matrimony again.

He really has a nice smile. I love the way his eyes crinkle up. He looks so full of hope and love. Looking at his openness and lack of fear, you would think this was his first time at this. But I know that is not true; we had to list the number of marriages on the marriage license. Stan had been married once before, but he called that his starter marriage. I guess that means this is the ender marriage.

Stan seems like he has so little baggage coming into this relationship. I, on the other hand, will be packing mine for a long time. It is not that I am against marriage; it is just that I have found I am better at being single. Until meeting Stan, I was committed to remaining single and happy. Stan really swept me off my feet in a whirlwind romance.

Lost in my thoughts, I feel Stan take my hand and walk me through the congratulatory line of friends. Most of them are either his or mine since we have not known each long enough to have shared friends.

That wasn’t true with my first husband. Tom and I had become involved in our freshman year in college, living together most of our years at college, and for the two years following graduation. While students, neither one of us thought we needed the trappings of marriage to be committed to each other. We made that commitment under a full moon, with all of our friends in a circle around us beating tom-tom drums. Two years out of school and in the real work world, we turned in the tom-toms, and got married with the full regalia, and most of the same friends there to congratulate us. In less than a year, Tom had walked out the door and headed to work in Wall Street, with our neighbour’s husband as his new partner.

Stan turns to get both of us a glass of champagne. At the same time, I move and bump into Judy. Judy is one of my oldest friends. She gives me a big hug. I can tell she is working hard to not make a sarcastic remark about my fourth walk down the aisle. Judy has been at all my weddings but the first. She was my maiden of honour at the second wedding, and maid of honour at the third. This time I skipped the attendants, preferring a cosier less formal ceremony.

Judy actually met her husband at my second wedding. That was my marriage to Juan. Juan was from Mexico, and a very Latin male. We had a major Spanish extravaganza for our wedding, with all his relatives and friends joining us for the celebration. The Latin music played all evening, and his friends taught me all the dances. Juan got jealous as I danced the night away, and sulked most of the evening, and for the next 14 months of our marriage.

As Judy turns to congratulate Stan, he hands me my glass of champagne. The bubbles tickle my noise, and remind me of the giddiness I am feeling. I can’t help myself as I begin to giggle. Apparently it becomes contagious, as both Stan and Judy begin to giggle as well. One of the things I love about Stan is his enjoyment of my silliness, my playful inner child. Although we have only known each other for the last five months, I have laughed more with him than any of the previous husbands.

Certainly it wasn’t possible to laugh with Tim, my third husband, a professor of philosophy at the local university. Tim took himself, and everyone around him, very seriously. He really never saw the humour in anything. He hated Judy because she was so full of fun, he thought she was frivolous. We didn’t own a television set because it was a wasteland, and the only movies we went to see were dark foreign films that could reassure Tim that the world was in a state of doom and gloom. I would sneak off with Judy to see the latest bestseller films. I would never admit this betrayal to him. One day, about three years into our marriage, Judy and I were leaving the latest light comedy, and we bumped into Tim also leaving the movie, with a young, blonde student draped on his arm.

After that, I swore off marriage, and yet, here I am at my fourth wedding, giggling with my fourth husband. Stan takes my hand and takes me into dance, swirling me around somewhat to the beat of the music. It is our first time dancing, but neither of us is hesitant as we move together to the music.

Stan and I met on line. I know I said I wanted to be single, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be dateless or celibate the rest of my life. Also, Judy talked me into it. Judy loves to give dinner parties, and likes to have an even number of guests. As her best friend, she doesn’t feel like she can leave me out. She researched a few on line dating services, and suggested a user name – Lost but Looking, and worked up an initial profile. Although I didn’t take all of her suggestions, I did try the online service and that’s where I met Stan. I was about to quit the idea, after a few disaster dates, when Stan showed up on my list. We met, and five months later we are husband and wife.

I feel like I am beginning to breathe again, but it might be the effects of the champagne. All night I have been in a cloud, not sure that any of this has really happened, until I look up at Stan and realize we are really here together, at our wedding. I have walked down that aisle again with a man that I haven’t known long, but he can laugh at life and himself, and he enjoys my friends and my silliness. Knowing someone well might just be over rated.

We followed the Thames Path. 

Done and dusted. 

We had some company along the way. 

Time to celebrate - completion of the Thames Path. 

The Thames Path - Source to Barrier

After following the path from the source in Kemble, we have made it to the Thames Barrier. An exciting conclusion to a celebrated event. We completed the north side of the path the weekend before, and then we started again at Teddington to cover the south side of the Thames Path. Two days of walking - seventeen miles from Teddington to Vauxhall Bridge, and 14 miles from Vauxhall Bridge to the Thames Barrier - We can now honestly say we have walked the Thames Path. All in all we walked approximately 210 miles along the Thames River.

Wonders to see, a quest accomplished, and a wonderfully shared experience.

The Birthday Party

Turning 50 seemed like a big deal, something to celebrate, but not just a party. It required an event. Something that yelled out – this will be different. Something that said I am not going quietly. For me, the 50th was a celebration of life past, present and future. The gala event became a two week trip to Morocco including a week long trek through the High Atlas Mountains. As I began to make arrangements, reactions ranged from my being crazy to envy to jealousy. I could not be swayed.

For two weeks, Morocco was my birthday party, a happening with 12 other trekkers, a guide, a variety of Arab and Berber muleteers, and 8 mules. It was an exotic sensory experience. Walking through the narrow passageways of Old Fez, the aromas of the foods, the spices, and the tobacco comingle so strongly that you can actually taste it, your eyes burn with the flavours. Mules with heavily burdened packs take up most of the corridor, just barely missing you as you try to duck out of the way. Souks are around each corner, every one filled with a speciality. The coolness of the brass, the smell of the leather and the large vats of dyes filled with different colours. The sounds of the daily work, the mules and the noise of the sellers reaching out for customers intertwine with the sound of the praying from the mosques.

Morocco is filled with extremes that must be felt as well as seen. The Medina of Marrakech filled with street vendors including snake charmers, souks and opulent mansions. The intense heat of the summer day that leaves you feeling wilted. Your fingers brush against the variety of colours and materials in buildings and stroke the rugs that decorate the furniture and the floor. It is a place to not only see but to experience.

All of this would have been quite a party of its own, but add the seven day hiking experience through the mountains and Berber villages, and it became a celebration like no other. In the first three days of unending upward slopes to reach our top climb of around 12000 feet, my soon to be fifty year old muscles felt every step, aching for a hot soak and massage. Neither of which was part of the adventure package.

In the night, I experienced real darkness for the first time of my life. The noise of darkness amazed me. Sound was all around me, from the wind and the animals in the night. Every smell was more intense, and the changes in the weather bombarded my senses. Each evening was a unique experience: from the intensity of a sand storm against your skin; the coldness of a desert evening in the mountains; to the intense heat in the valley.

Walking through Berber villages that could only be reached by foot or mule provided another day of experiences. Only the splash of colours in the clothes contrasted to the barren environment. The women were covered from head to foot in layers carrying heavy packs on their backs. All of this intensified the feel of the hot air on my skin and the exhaustion I felt in every muscle.

The last day in the mountains was my actual birthday, and I had a party like no other. After a special dinner prepared for the celebration with the bottles of wine coming out of the mule packs, the sounds of our muleteers broke through the night singing happy birthday in Berber. It is a birthday event I will never forget.

British Elections like American ..... NOT

It is somewhat like American elections on amphetemine, but NOT. It is countdown time. Only 5 days of campaigning are left in a 30 day campaign period that determines the direction of British policy and government for the next 5 years. All of the House of Commons is up for election, and the party with the majority will take the coveted award of the Prime Minister position. I have not seen any TV ads, few highway signs, no political buttons, and no bumper stickers and no political debates between candidates. Is this truly an election?

Blair must feel like he is in Iraq - bombs are dropping all around him in these last few days. Each day another leak of news proving that he lied about the reasons to go to war. Each day another disillusioned insider sticks it to him and the Labour party. Each day the news seems to carry a new failure - waiting times in the NHS, crime figures, school problems. Yet will it change anything? It seems that there is a general belief that Blair is a liar, that he conspired to go to war. Still it seems that a lying Labour government is still better than a Michael Howard Tory government.

Thirty days is not much time to wage a campaign, react to charges, or convince the public of much. If a tactic doesn't work it must be changed immediately as there is no time for failure in a 30 day campaign particularly in an uphill battle. Negative campaigning (called American style politics) has not gone over well, or maybe it didn't matter. If the public already believe that they can not trust Blair, telling them doesn't seem to matter.

Latest polls show that 50% percent believe that Blair is not a good Prime Minister, yet 54% believe that Michael Howard would make a bad Prime Minister, and 52% believe that Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat candidate, could not cope as a Prime Minister. So maybe it is like American politics after all - most feel they are voting for the lesser of the two evils.

The Face of London

What a wonderful example of the faces of London. The architects of the 21st Century that have changed the current face of London - Norman Foster and Richard Rogers buildings next to each other. The Foster on the left showing the similiar gherkin line, next to the Rogers inside out building. In front is an example of the work of the architect of the late 17th century - the Christopher Wren chapel.

The Architects of London