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Floats, politics, exercise and writing

Lately we've been on a root beer float kick.  I've also been wondering why I can't lose any weight. Coincidence?  Absolutely! One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.  And no, it's not diet root beer.

I considered using this blog to voice my concerns about Sarah Palin and John McCain, but I will resist except for  this short blurb.  For now, anyway.  I could go on and on about how disturbing it is that they are now soaring in the polls.  Sarah believes our involvement in Iraq is a holy war, that we should teach creationism in our public schools, that her pipe line is ordained by God and we should drill baby drill despite any effect it will have on God's green earth.  Then there's John McCain, a life-long Episcopalian who suddenly became a Baptist.  What the h-e-double toothpicks is wrong with Episcopalians?  I say, give me a man who has attended the same church for 20 years (Obama) and a good Catholic boy (Biden) any day.  And that's all I will say about that.  Except that I think it would do us well to elect a nice, benevolent Buddhist one of these days.  This, coming from someone who does not kill the spiders she finds in the house, but who captures and carries them outside so they can do their good works outside, where they belong.  (OK, sometimes I actually do suck 'em up with the vacuum cleaner.  I'll have to mention that next time I go to confession.)

Crawford and I just got back from a 15 minute walk.  It's really more of a workout for me, since I'm lifting her butt the whole way with the sling.  By the time we got back today, I was dripping sweat and my biceps muscles were screaming.  I guess that's a good thing, what with the root beer floats and all.  She, on the other hand, got to do lots of sniffing and even a few extra pee pees in strategic places.  It was a good romp for her.  I suspect she'll be very tired this afternoon and sleep well.

I have to go to work this afternoon.  Business was down more than 20 percent from last August, and I suspect it will be slow again today, although every once in awhile we still get slammed with tour vans.  The trouble lately is that people come in, taste the wine for free, buy a $4 magnet and  leave.  

Enough blogging for today.  I've got reading to do, stories to write, stories to get ripped apart by mentor professors, stories to proof, stories to edit and revise, stories to toss in the trash... Ah yes, the writer's life.  So glamorous.  So rewarding.  So lucrative.  If you're Danielle Steel or James Patterson.  If you're me?  It's all about calloused keyboard-weary fingers and striving to keep at least two brain cells focused enough to stay in the room long enough to complete a single paragraph, let alone a whole story.  Oh yeah, and instead of earning multimillion dollar book deals, I'm paying  - in the form of tuition - for tough love, administered with the hope that maybe, just maybe, I will generate a page or two that someone, somewhere might actually want to read.

Really though, after that little walk with Crawford, I'm ready for a nap.

A hui hou.  Aloha!











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