why is a party a good one?

I haven't been to a party in a long time. I was lucky enough to be invited to one and got dressed up. My daughter (above) really wanted to go with me, but that was impossible. I drove to the party wondering if I would have a good time. When I was in my 20s, I used to go to tons of them. There were a few good parties that I attended in my 30s, and the best party of all was our wedding dance in 1993. After getting divorced and being in my 40s, there are fewer invitations.

2 weeks ago, as I rode to my job on a train, as I always do, a friend of mine was kind enough to invite me to a Halloween party. I went, and the first impression was, "Wow! What a community this is!" There was an electronic gate with cameras that keeps out riff-raff of not the building, but the whole subdivision! I felt lucky that the gate was open when I drove into this posh subdivision.

There was a hayride, and the passengers laughed about the streets being so wide an airplane could use them as landing strips. I happily took a picture of a group of young women when they asked me to.

There were festive games that were played that I participated in. Is the awesome, safe community and the great games by the great MC what made the party? That helped. My friend's brother was the MC, and it would put a smile on your face to see him facilitate the fun had by all, courtesy of Sean and others.

What was it that made this a fun party that I will never forget?

The impressive community/subdivision it was in? The hayride? The music? The music was good. I am such a staunch, true-believer of rock-n-roll, & I was a bit uneasy about rap or hip-hop (or whatever it's called)making people dance and have fun as much as my rock music does.

The DJ played rock after 1 am and people had fun (just as they did to hip hop). I liked the DJ, and it was apparent that he liked some of the same music I did.

Since I was dressed up for Halloween, I went as one of the Blues Brothers, Elwood Blues. & if anyone asked where Jake was, I could conveniently say, "it used to be my ex". Was it fun when I danced w/ the DJ when we both appeared as Blues Brothers & danced at the party for several blues/rock songs? Yes, that was fun, and partygoers seemed to like that a lot (which made me smile a lot).

Still....what really made the party fun was the same reason 2 of the best parties I went to were fun. It was fun b/c the people were friendly. We had a good time, and it was easy to smile with them. I didn't have to agonize figuring out who to dance with, b/c all I had to do was simply go to where they were dancing and having fun.

The people tonight were definitely what made the party fun, and that's the way it always is at a fun party.

2 more weeks of football for Ted

Ted wears a blue & white "C" on his jersey, b/c he is the captain of his team. He has been the biggest kid on his football team the last 2 years. One game they put him up against the toughest kid from their defensive line and Ted, with some help, stopped him from getting to the ball.

2 weeks ago, against the Broncos, he had 5 "flags" (when flag is pulled off ball carrier, ball carrier must stop) and 3 OF THEM were for loss of yardage or "sacks". One of his teammate walked over to him after the game, patted his "C" and said, "You really earned being Captain today!"

Last team, Ted's team ran back 2 kickoff returns for touchdowns. He's down to his last 2 games. This week ends the regular season, and next week is the beginning of tournament action where they face the toughest team in the league, the Vikings.

Let's hope they can finally bring home a win this Sunday!!

TOO DRIVEN

“Driven in -- Driven to the edge

Driven out -- On the thin end of the wedge

Driven off -- By things I've never seen

Driven on -- By the road to somewhere I've never been….The road unwinds towards me

What was there is gone .

The road unwinds before me And I go riding on” Neil Peart of Rush. From the album Test for Echo


It’s amazing how therapeutic sleep really is. I ran out of Lunesta several days ago and Benadryl is inferior because you have a sense of grogginess (while Lunesta allows you to wake up “fresh as a daisy”.)
If it wasn’t for the dreadful metallic taste in my mouth, I would call Lunesta a miracle drug!

So, the accommodating secretary from the Doc’s office gave me the refill @ Walgreens and it remains to be seen if my venerable ex, MB, gets it today. I'll get it if I have to b/c I'm writing this at lunch and don't feel very good. UPDATE: It's the next day, & Lunesta didn't help only 3 hrs. of sleep.
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If you have not watched, Easy Rider (released in 1969 by Peter Fonda) you really, really should! People think that it’s a movie about motor cycle riding and drug taking, but it really isn’t. I firmly believe it’s an anti-drug movie. In a pivotal scene, Peter Fonda clutches a female statue in a New Orleans cemetery. The statue resembles the Statue of Liberty.

Peter Fonda’s mother (and Henry Fonda’s wife) committed suicide. Zoom and flash into the movie Easy Rider. Towards the end of the acid trip, when the LSD will not permit one to sleep, Peter Fonda’s character in a drug-induced plaintive sob, cries, “Mom? Mom? Why did you leave me? You left me, mother; you “copped out”; AND I HATE YOU FOR THAT!!!"

Since I rented the DVD of Easy Rider, there are bonus parts (35th Anniversary Edition DVD). He explains the immense embarrassment he later felt after they filmed that scene where he is sobbing and bemoaning his dead mother. He wanted to yank that scene out. He was persuaded by Dennis Hopper to leave it in. Dennis Hopper was pretty compelling, and he yelled just enough to finally convince Fonda. (“I’M THE DIRECTOR”, yelled Hopper). I believe had that scene been yanked as Fonda initially wanted it to be, the movie would not have won as many awards. The intense sadness of abandonment is one that millions of people feel on a daily basis.

Easy Rider was an award-winning movie at the Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated 3 times by the Academy of Awards, yet the “uptight” film academy of 1969 refused to glorify this “drug” movie (NOT!). It clearly was one of the best movies depicting the whole counter-culture wrought during the 60s. It speaks to the racism in the South (where it is still present in certain politicians, journalists and sadly that region), the utter lack of control when one takes certain illicit drugs. Sadly enough, it graphically depicts the pain and mental damage one suffers when they lose their mother at a tender age. Peter Fonda wasn’t even a teenager when his mother suddenly killed herself by slitting her throat.

I thank God that I have a stable mother who has been a great influence on my life.

Current events & the slanted view

The current state of politics here in the United States is pretty amazing. In general, we are doing well. The federal government has noticeably contributed to helping improve the economy. There were such dire economic predictions at the start of the year as Obama first became president.

Yet, there are spiteful remarks from former V-Pres. Cheney (& he has a clueless daughter, too!) that were publicized later. In January, he pathetically and dismissively said that the new administration "wasn't ready for prime time" with respect to the Jewish-Palestinian problem.

Very, very ironic! This is where a good deal of hypocrisy radiates through Cheney's critique.
There he was Vice President, and his pathetic Bush administration did virtually nothing about the Jewish/Palestinian problem during the first several years Bush was president. At the start, President Obama has former Senator George Mitchell (who made peace in Ireland) as the primary negotiator of the corrosive situation in Israel.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney held his own administration he was involved in to a pathetically LOW standard. Yet, his enemy, the liberals in the Obama administration are supposed to do things perfect, and if they don't, then he will excoriate them.
We have an administration, we can be proud of. Obama doesn't have a Secretary of Defense like a Rumsfeld openly disdainful of Germany and United Kingdom. The world, most notably Europe, is working with us about the problems affecting the globe. Reactionaries sit there ignorantly ignoring global warming and cited hack scientists who were paid by petroleum companies (where Bush worked at when he was a younger man) to vainly bleat that "global warming" is fiction. All the while we continue to pollute and make the climate warmer still. How can Republicans ignore that? Yet they sit there doing just that.
Republicans and reactionaries sit there excoriating Obama, b/c he has directed the CIA not to torture. Yet, they are woefully and completely clueless that the wide-scale torture done during the Bush administration, the torture at Guantanamo base has been used to recruit more terrorists in Iraq & Afghanistan, which has led to killing of American lives in Western Asia! It is well documented as FACT that prisoners captured by Bush's forces in Afghanistan were tortured to the point that they would say anything and tell Americans (torturing them) lies. Lies that put our forces in peril! Documented facts are there, yet it's all ignored just so Republicans can get back into power ASAP. Poorly read, lack of select reading and listening skills, because they would rather hear Beck, Limbaugh & Roger Ailes (an political hack from Bush Sr.'s administration) leading Fox News.
Republican and reactionaries fail to acknowledge the capture of terrorists, Najibullah Zazi and his father. They don't say a damn thing about that, b/c they want you & I to be shnookered into thinking Obama is stupid and clueless.
Republicans have fell out of touch and their failure was well described by the very famous pollster, Nate Silver of http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
"(The reason) why conservatives don't win elections anymore… is not that conservatism generally permits less nuance than liberalism (in terms of political messaging, that is probably one of conservatism's strengths).
Rather, the key….(is that) there is a certain segment of conservatives who literally cannot believe that anybody would see the world differently than the way they do. They have not just forgotten how to persuade; they have forgotten about the necessity of persuasion."

Further, when they do attempt to persuade, it's done in the most ham-fisted ways. These same conservatives brand Liberals as "UnAmericans", "instruments of terrorism" all the while denying the Democratic administration's effective attempts at fighting terrorism. They fail to acknowledge that Democrats (a majority of them) voted for funding the war in Afghanistan back in 2001.
No, Republicans love to mislead. Currently, that's why a majority of Americans are sick of them!

Ted's tough game/Andy's work of art

the painting has a glass w/ too much reflection, sorry folks

Ted's Homecoming game started off rough w/ 2 TDs scored by the Broncos. Then, Ted suffered a hard hit to the knee, straining the ligaments and was crying as he came out. With 3 minutes left in the game, the other assistant coach told him to just relax, and if he felt better, he could come in for the 2nd half. His mother who administrated the team's ice pack, asserted the same.

Ted ignored them both. He was upset that without him the Broncos scored another TD while Ted's mom held the ice pack against his knee. But he was upset and wanted to get out there. Within one minute, he went from laying down, to standing up, walking, and running out onto the field to play center for his team. To my delight, he countermanded both the other assistant coach and his mom. You could hear the 49er parents from a 1/2 mile away as they loudly cheered Ted as he ran back on the field.

The hardest part came at halftime as I had to work very hard to lift his spirits. Down 20-0, this was a game that we fully expected to win. Ted and I both scouted the Broncos and were very misled. They played the Oak Forest Steelers 2 wks. ago and the Broncos looked little and underwhelming. What we did not realize was that one of their big linemen were out of the game we scouted and was back in during our game. So Ted felt worthless, as he got beat on the run outside as a defensive end and didn't get any flags/tackles on defense, and didn't catch any of the poorly thrown balls thrown to him on offense.

The biggest problem that our 49ers face is that every team circles the game they play against Ted's team on their calendar. We have NOT won a game in a season & a 1/2 as we started 2008 as an expansion team in the league. The coaches have not done a good job of drafting big strong players. The teams come in very, very motivated and hyped that the 49er game is the one they will win. The Broncos came at our small line with 9 or 10 players.

Rallying the team at halftime worked. The 49ers shut the offense of the Broncos out in the 2nd half. Ted pulled a flag and held the running back to no gain. He knocked a defensive end to the ground pulling on a sweep which sprung our running back for 25 yards. As you can see, from the picture below, he earned another "POW" for his flag pull as DE and another football for his good blocking and flawless snaps as a center.

The Broncos got frustrated that they failed to push the 49ers around in the 3rd quarter so they resorted to punching. When I went out onto the field to coach the defense, Pablo Vega had tears in his eyes. The coach's son punched him on repeated plays (Bully #22) I responded by calling a blitz where Johnny Nietzel sacked their quarterback. "Where did that boy (Johnny) come from???" the Broncos coach said in a fog of confusion.

On offense, Head Coach Nietzel ordered Teddy and 2 other teammates to body slam and pile onto dirty #22 slamming him to the ground. Teddy saved his hardest hit for "dirty 22". Next play, when Dirty 22 raced into our quarterback to hit him after the play, Liam popped his elbow into his ribs. The gun sounded as the game was over. The 3 of us coaches confronted the Broncos coach, and boldly discussed Dirty 22's uncalled-for punches. The coach didn't mouth off, but rather, meekly played "stupid". He even admitted that Dirty 22 was his son!!

Ted was tired and winded. He deserved a lecture from both Mom and me. He admitted that he refused to eat lunch (which I tried serving him) because he was too finicky to eat. He admitted that he was light-headed from going 8 hrs. with nothing to eat but a big breakfast of bacon, milk and pancakes. He admitted he nearly fainted on the last play. His mother wisely told him that if he refused 5 options of food at lunch, he had no one to blame but himself. I glibly told him that he takes after both parents, who were both picky eaters as kids. Mom angrily denied being picky, but I silently recalled the fact that both kids graduated high school scrawny. Like a good Communist rewriting history, Momma forgot her own self-admission on that point! Just kidding, we don't fight nearly as much as 2002-05.

I've concluded that when I compare Ted to me as a 5th grader, we both suffer the curse of being a slow runners. We both played in pain when we got hurt in a game. My experience was a basketball game in Highland where I had the same injury but came back while our team won.

Ted, however, is more mature, smarter, and stronger as a football player. I just couldn't come close in grade school to accomplishing what he has. He has faithfully learned the plays, and, as center, snaps the ball with 99% accuracy, not only on direct snaps but on the shotgun play too. As coach John said last year, "Ted gets it!" Coach John Neitzel in the last 2 years has never said one discouraging word to Ted, and we calmly make suggestions whenever Ted makes mistakes. We have all recognized that Ted leads the team along with the 2 alternating quarterbacks. He proudly wears his All-American blue "C" for Captain that I had sewn into his jersey. (He's even a voice of reason at home!) With a better offensive line, the 49ers would have 2 more victories in a 4 game season. Seeing the start of Ted becoming a young man is an inspiration to all of us!

Coach John said the following during Homecoming dinner (& there are no dates for the 2nd through 5th grade team, lol, just a big ole supper by a large group of great parents, especially the football mothers who are with the 49ers through thick and thin!!)

"We had 3 goals I wanted the '9ers to accomplish.

1. Play the whole game hard and never quit.


2. Score a touchdown.


3. Win Homecoming.

We didn't win, but we held the ball 8 of 14 minutes in the 2nd half. We didn't score, but we at least accomplished 1/2 the goal. We definitely did NOT quit through the entire game. So by accomplish 1 1/2 goals and rounding up, we won today. Our young team rallied to Pablo when the Broncos gave him the brunt of their dirty play. Did we punch back, team?

NOOOO! shouted the young team.

"That's right, we played good, clean 49er football! We held our heads up and denied them any scoring that 2nd half. We begin as a team, and we'll end as a team. Now, let's give a big round of applause to the fine 49er moms who put out a sumptuous feast for all of us!"

Cheers and applause. Ted was hurt and dejected at halftime, but he and the rest of his teammates joined together after supper playing on the playground like the young winners they are.

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We all know what a tough year my oldest son, Andy had last year. A 25-foot fall off a balcony last 9-13-2008, scoring 60th percentile in the standardized reading test in Illinois, suffering and struggling with below average grades in Writing and Reading both last year and currently this year, and of course, suffering Asperger's Syndrome. We've helped, and we rewarded him, because in the 4th quarter, he finished strong in the end. He earned a white belt in Karate this summer; his white belt test brought tears to his supportive mother's eyes. He was rewarded for working and doing a great deal of housework by earning over $30 these past 2 weeks. He finished all of his homework, and during Homecoming game, he ran the first down chains with 2 football parents and loudly supported Ted. During the 2nd half as he intently watched Ted and his team losing, Andy (at 5'7", taller than his mom and a lil' over 160 lbs.) turned to me and said, "I wish that I could give that offensive line 50% of my size!"

Now, you and I have had a supportive grade school teacher when we were much, much younger. From the ages of 5-13 yrs. old, there was that one teacher who guided and nurtured us. Andy found that teacher after his fall, last year, his wonderful art teacher, Mrs. Nix. He earned an A in Art in 2008 and is well on his way to an A+ this quarter with this painting. My phone camera didn't do it justice, but there it is, above. Last month, Mrs. Nix has enthusiastically invited him to the Art Club where he meets every Tuesday afternoon, and he is really enjoying his 1st extra curricular activity after school! By the way, Andy has continued to do very well in Math, was in the mid80th percentile in the standardized Illinois test, and continues to work hard and do his schoolwork with Bs and As on his tests.


God bless, Mrs. Nix. When she beheld Andy's work of art above, she spent $15 for the glass and frame. MB & I know that she is definitely going to be invited to Andy's 8th grade graduation party. Andy hopes she will be there. Special thanks goes to Andy's Aunt Karen who gave him a very nice art set about 5 years ago, and Andy used on a regular basis until the colors were gone and the colored pencils were short.

sorry,women,friends&men,but give me your patience!

Here is Darth Vader before the man joined the Dark Side this past summer. I liked him before then!

Sorry, but can't post results of Ted's Homecoming game yet. It's a bit of a long story, and I hope you can all wait. Plus, Darth Vader is playing tonight against the mighty Packers. Potential MUST = ACTION, tonight!

a distant Homecoming

My own son is playing at Homecoming w/ a lot of people and a nice spread of food afterwards. (No, it's not like the high school homecomings; he's only 11).

It made me think the Homecoming I went to my senior year, (with Therese Berns Deckert, nice time was had by all after the dance). This is what I looked like that year.