Bad News. Prayers Needed.

My mother had an apparent (minor) stroke yesterday and is hospitalized. She is, or was, awake and talking in the ER, albeit with some distortion of her voice. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Yup. This!!

The First Day of School 2016

First day of school! :)

My Dad and I travel to Chicago to see a White Sox game

On a rainy Chicago day in 2003 - back when I still had all my hair - my Dad and I drove down from Milwaukee to catch a Yankees game at U.S. Cellular field. 

Gold Star

Gold star 🌟 goes to Dan  for making rice crispy treats for the back-to-school bake sale (with proceeds going to LuLu 's DC trip). I was planning on doing it, but he had them completed and individually wrapped by the time I woke up. Wow... Thanks babe! - Lisa

The Last Day of Our Summer

Tomorrow is the last day of summer vacation for the kids. I am not sad they are returning, but I am not ecstatic either. I like them around.

An Update

The scale was kind to me today, and I'm happy, but I've had to kibosh any real exercise for the last 48 because the hip keeps flaring up - oddly enough, not from the workouts, but from having to stand in one place at the post office for a third of an hour. That's death for the hip. Expect a nauseating gym post tomorrow.

The Binding by Nicholas Wolff

I liked The Binding, a new horror novel by Nicholas Wolff (said to be a pseudonym for a best selling author), right up until the last few pages, when in my opinion it stuck the reader with a cliched ending right out of a horror film. 

That aside, I still recommend it. But . . . 

This gaffe at the start of chapter fifty-six really knocked me out of the book for a good long while. He describes a college basketball, tied at 88 all  (that, despite it being a "tepid" game, would be a stellar score for an NCAA contest). Then, in the very next sentence, he talks about the quarterback launching a long pass. 

Look, either the author is COMPLETELY, silly-sitcom ignorant about sports, which I fear might be the case, or he started the chapter, put it down for a good long time, then forged ahead based on a false recollection of what he'd already written. 

Either way, where were the editors?

That's an inexcusable gaffe in a mainstream novel. 

Kaepernick is a bum, but a bum with rights

Colin Kaepernick has a right to protest as he wishes. The fact that he makes millions, simply by virtue of being born in a country that values his skills, doesn't negate his ability to argue on behalf of those making far less money, whether you think his cause is just or not.  

Likewise, the fact that TimTebow was mocked and minimized for his utterly sincere belief in Christ does not, in return, grant you the power to shun Kaepernick out of spite. 

But before you think I went all lefty-loosey, think again.

He did not protest in the past, when his money was being negotiated and deals made, and when he was riding an over-hyped path to stardom. No siree, not then. Not when he supposedly experienced police impropriety in college, not when Trayvon Martin was killed, not when Ferguson erupted, not when Chicago and Baltimore turned into a killing field for blacks No, not then. 

Now, when he's a bench player that can't get a starting gig, NOW he deems it important enough to make his point, and coincidentally make things mighty uncomfortable for the organization benching him.

I call B.S. 

He's a piece of petulant, hypocritical sh*t, but even pieces of s*it have their rights. 

Of course, the 1st amendment applies ONLY to the gov't acting upon your speech. An employer can do as they wish regarding the speech and actions of an employee, and I think the NFL is eager, if possibly unwilling, to grant him a permanent spot on the bench and out of the spotlight.