i’ve been in a pretty good mood lately, nothing to worry about, and more importantly, nothing crazy in my head making me worry for no good reason. i’d even be so bold as to venture that my mood has actually been full-on good, not just pretty good.
but then last night i did a lot of reading – news news news. did you know that the definition of poverty in this country is based on a model determined in the 1950’s? so that makes lots more people living in poverty than the government reports, and there are many many people in horrible trouble and they can’t get support from the government because they have too much money to be defined as in poverty.
first it was toyota gas pedals sticking, now they’re saying that toyota priuss have something wrong with the brakes. picture the scenario where a camry is barreling along way too fast because the gas pedal is stuck, and they encounter a prius who can’t brake…
the tea party. sarah palin. i’ve been trying to avoid reading anything about either, but i finally read about the latest big meeting of tea partiers. did you know that at the big convention where she spoke, the guy who organized this particular branch of the partiers decided to turn it into a for-profit organization and charged the 600 attendees $600 apiece? i couldn’t bear to listen to any of palin’s speech but i did read her line addressed to obama, it was something like “how’s that change-ey, hope-y thing going for ya?” I have this horrible fear that because there are just so many stupid people in the world, somehow she’ll get nominated. sarah palin in the white house is simply too insane and horrible to think about.
i also read a big article about medicaid and medicare and how if one spouse has to go into a nursing home for a long, long time, and they can’t afford it, in order to qualify for medicaid, the person would have to “spend down” all their assets dwindle down to $2,000 before they can qualify. another alternative is that the spouse not needing care would have to divorce the spouse in need so that that person could qualify.
then i read about how in order for your brain to keep working you need to keep sharp and the article had some little tests to see how you’re doing. i didn’t even have to think about a couple of the puzzles for more than a minute and figured them out and that made me feel smart, but then there were a couple of others that i didn’t even understand what they were asking.
brain shrinking.
at the library a few weeks ago on the display in front were a bunch of mysteries. i picked up one of them, and it was called “monsieur pamplemousse,” about a former police detective in paris who now works for a guide that’s like the Michelin food guide. he goes different places and rates them, but then there’s always some mystery to be solved. there’s lots of talk about french food (i can figure out many of the french dishes that he talks about), and the places he visits sound interesting. i read one book, and then checked out a bunch more in the series. they’re not exactly deep reading but they’re fun. he has a dog named Pommes Frites (french fries). Pommes Frites goes everywhere with Pamplemousse, and gets to go to restaurants with him and stays in hotels, and i keep thinking what would happen if Mollie was allowed to do that.
the author of the series is Michael Bond, who also wrote the wildly popular “Paddington Bear” children’s book series. i checked out a paddington because it was so long ago that i read it, and i fell in love with that funny bear. The stories are really funny; paddington gets into all kinds of silly trouble and then everything is all right again and he always, always comes out on top. there are cute little illustrations and paddington reminds me of Shadow, who i continue to miss.
I keep saying to myself that i might write a children’s book, and that’s why i’m now trying to read every single paddington, but really, they’re just a lot of fun to read.
so that’s how i’m counteracting all the real-world things getting me down. if you see a middle-age woman wearing a pink knit cap with “obama” written on the front wandering around in the children’s section of the library, that’ll be me.
oh, and “pamplemousse” – it means grapefruit. i found this out the other day because somebody had a fancy candle with the description in both french and english written on it, and there it was, “pamplemousse.”
ok then,
sunday grace.