A Double Standard in Truth Telling

Last week, Pres Obama addressed Congress and the Nation concerning his Healthcare plan. It was half way into his speech when a Republican could handle the speech no more and yelled out from the floor 'You lie!' Had I been there, I probably would have stood and applauded the outcry as it was exactly how I was feeling from the comfort of my own couch in the living room. Of course, his denouncement of the presidents speech was taken with much offense by the Democrats and even some of the Republicans, who thought he shouldn't have been so rude and outspoken in front of the nation. His consequence??? They held an 'official vote' in the House of Congress of giving this honest Republican an open 'rebuke' for his outburst. The vote passed, and Rep. Wilson has been rebuked.
Last night, at an awards program on t.v., singer Taylor Swift was receiving an award for her performance when another famous performer ran out and embarrassed himself and everyone else there saying rude comments and disrupting the whole evening. It was terribly inappropriate and humiliating for both Taylor Swift and others there.
Today, Pres. Obama was being interviewed by a reporter, but before the interview started and the microphone was supposedly off, he was asked by the reporter about the said incident the night before, where he responded by calling the perpetrator a 'jackass'. The comment was immediately taken by those in the room and placed on 'Twitter' and the Internet. Pres. Obama is outraged as he felt his name calling was the truth of the situation he had seen the night before.

Now, I say to myself, "Why is one truth rebuked, abolished and publicly denounced and the other found accurate, acceptable and supported by those who also saw the incident???" I find a dramatic distortion of 'truth telling'...So it matters WHO is telling the truth?? Does it matter WHERE the truth is being told? Or is it to whom the truth is being told????

Or should we put it before Congress for a vote???

Maintenance....Every 3000 Miles

Most everything in life has to be 'maintained'. Our cars, our homes, our food storage, our lifestyle, our bodies.
So last Friday was 'maintenance' day. The Honda needed the oil changed, fluids filled, tires kicked and rotated and cleaned inside and out. A $49.95 charge when all was said and done.
Then, it was MY turn....off to the OB-GYN. I was poked, pricked, kicked, smashed and cleaned inside and out. Those visits are not fun. My body maintenance is the worst visit of the year...the typical questions...any new info in medical history? How old was your mother when she got breast cancer? When was your last period? ETC...Then they draw blood to test if I'm pre-menopausal...geez, just ASK me..I can tell you!!! Then they prick my finger to test my blood clotting abilities...good to go there, but I AM anemic...not enough iron in my diet. And then of course, we always have the 'finale'...the good old 'spread Eagle, loss of any pride probing ritual' that every obstetrician must just live for!!! Can't they go through the belly button for this?? They can for everything else these days???!!
Of course, then I finish with the 'icing on the cake'...the mammogram!! It's amazing to me how much emphasis is placed on the woman's breast. It's a source of nourishment for our children, a body part that many see as sexual and depending on size, mostly determines what I am and am NOT able to wear in clothing. All women are either too big, too small, too flat, too imbalanced but certainly NEVER perfect, unless they cost over $10,000...and then they have the chance of 'leaking'. So mammograms prove for a very interesting experience.
After we have been poked, prodded, pricked and pronounced ready to re-dress, we are then led to another room where, once again, we have to partially undress the body part that we try sooo desperately to keep covered out in public, but so freely display now for an xray technician. Thank heavens mine is a female...so I can be humorous and sarcastic about the awkwardness of the situation.
To say that gravity has moved my body parts into different places gives too much credit to gravity. The poor technician was in such a state of confusion, trying to carefully move one body part out of the way, only to have another one massively takes it's place. There were not enough hands to hold my stomach, my extra breast tissue and other breast all out of the way at the same time. It was becoming a 'team effort'. It's at this point, that she feels she has my breast in the right place to smash it with this clamp device. Flat - flatter - flattened.
Can I say something at this point? Why? I'm pretty sure 'they' will never be the same again. By the time she had my arm positioned correctly and my head and chin up out of the way, she then has the nerve to tell, no, ask me 'not to breathe' as she snaps the xray. Of course, it's then that I envision this VOGUE pose I'm in and how absolutely ridiculous and uncomfortable I must look and I laugh.
Take two...and I didn't laugh.
This is, of course, to see if I have breast cancer or the beginnings thereof. I won't know any test results until next week. So far, they have been negative year after year. But there is going to come a year that the results are not going to be as they have previously been for either me, or one of my 11 siblings. My mother had breast cancer..in both breasts, and then a double mastectomy. Her only sister had breast cancer...our odds are good that one of us 12 siblings will get breast cancer. Probably even two of us.
So, each year, I go back and do the whole maintenance visit again. I'm figuring that I put on a little over 3000 miles each year, although, this visit, I had lost 4 pounds from last years visit. I think I'm holding on about as well as our 2005 Honda Accord with 108,000 miles on it. But HER maintenance visits aren't nearly as humorous as mine are.
I walked out of the doctors office fully dressed, feeling a little beaten up but contently happy with my 1 yr prescription of Paxil in hand.
That little pill makes the past hour's discomfort totally worth it.

Back in the Day

I went on my mission in April of 1979 with short red hair and weighing just about 130 pounds. The rule in the mission was that our hair could not be longer than a certain length and so mine was just below my ears. And it was red - or strawberry blond - more strawberry than blond. But while on my mission, I was in the sun quite a bit and so gradually, over the almost 2 year period, my hair bleached out to where I came home with much more blond than the strawberry....and it had grown out to about 4 inches past my shoulders. I had also had Typhoid Fever twice and had lost almost 25 pounds. I was different enough that at the airport, I was able to walk right past the guy I had dated for a year before my mission and he had waited for me. He didn't even recognize me! I guess that should have meant something to me at the time.
I moved into an apartment with my two cousins and a dear friend, Bev Davis (Roberts) who was my actual ROOM mate. Bev had the typical Utah hair - shoulder length and permed so that she could wear it in a full head of curls from hot steam rollers. I had never done much with my hair, especially during the previous 2 years, and so found myself a little lost in the 'glamour' department. So it didn't take much for Bev and my cousins to convince me to get my first perm. I was promised that it would make 'doing my hair' so much easier and quicker each day.
I went to the cheapest place I could find in Provo - the beauty school, and turned my head of hair over to a student that had been 2 weeks into her dream of being a beautician.
I cried for days...literally cried. To say it was a disaster would have been an understatement in the least. What they called 'virgin hair' had taken to the perm probably the first 5 minutes of what ended up to be a 30 minute process. When the curlers were removed, about 2-3 inches of hair broke off with each discarded curler. I don't think my eyes were any bigger or more surprised than the eyes of the student looking back at me. Her's held a look of panic as she called over the director of the school.
Now, the question became 'how to fix it?' The hair clearly had to be cut. So, off it came; up to shoulder length. And there was much shampooing...a usual 'no no' right after a perm. But finally, after about a month, the hair began to relax to where I was finally able to do something with it....More often than not though, it felt like a 'bush' that I was trying to keep in one place.
The result?? You have the above picture...my first perm and just 3 months after my mission.
The silly part?? I actually had one or two perms after that...but never again at the beauty school.
Kylie and Kathryn, well, and Mike, got a real kick out of the picture. My girls can't believe I ever looked like that. Del got a sly grin when he saw the picture again for the first time in years. That's what I looked like 'back in the day' when we met. I'm sure he wishes I still did.
And this is what I looked like when HE knew me...Jeff...his birthday is coming up. I miss him.

An Extra Day of Rest

They don't come very often, but this was a wonderful 4 day weekend for me!!! And I enjoyed every peaceful moment of it.
We barbecued today - Del really needs to focus a little more when he is at the grill. We were watching a football game AND playing Make a Million. I mean, not even Lacey would touch those hot dogs and I really had to beg her to even eat one of the hamburgers....and she eats dead rabbits!!!! We salvaged what we could and then enjoyed the potato salad and fruit...
The highlight of the weekend??? BYU BEAT OKLAHOMA, of course!!!!! Yep yep yep!!! But to watch Sports Center or ESPN, you would have thought Oklahoma had played themselves!!! Of course, Oklahoma is getting so much news time because our defense sacked their quarterback and took him right out of the game; and he's a Heisman Trophy winner!!! So it's been all about 'how Oklahoma is going to do now that their star player is out for 4 weeks or so'... But, BYU has had a few positive reports and some complimentary articles about them also. All in all, BYU had a great weekend and looks to have a really good season if they keep it up.
Good to have Kylie and Mike over to play games and share the 'burnt offerings'...Jordan called after spending the day with uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents in Utah. He will travel up to Idaho tomorrow morning and get moved into his apartment and then go buy his books. School starts Thursday for him.
Yesterday was our Michael's birthday. He would have been 26. Kylie and Kathryn pulled out some old photo albums and baby books yesterday and we looked at them sharing some fun memories together. They don't even know Michael - it's so sad to think that he was gone before they even came. But they had a fun time looking at their pictures from Idaho and Utah. I'm thinking of scanning a few of our earliest pictures from when we didn't have digital camera's. I don't want to ever lose some of our most precious memories. It will be a great project for me to start...
Maybe during my next 4 day weekend...

Saturday is a Special Day...

I've waited all year for today - Yes, it's BYU football - and life is good.
First game of the season and we play Oklahoma here in Texas. We are ranked 20...and Oklahoma is ranked like 6th. I'm blogging BEFORE the game because right now, I'm very optimistic and believing in our great team.
Will we win??? I hope so....
Will we win??? I'm praying we will...
Will we win??? I didn't pay the over $400 to go to the game because...
Will we win??? Get serious...
But I will be cheering the whole time wearing my 'cougar blue'.
I love BYU football!!!

He Needs Me

Jordan left for school today. We've spent the past three days getting things packed up, paying tuition and housing costs, laundry and making all the last minute arrangements for his leaving for BYU Idaho this morning. He drove up with his cousin Austin.
When I came home from work , I went into his room to remove the sheets from his bed, find the stray socks here and there, pick up his trash that had missed the can right by the side of his bed and place books and DVD's on a shelf so he would be able to find them easliy the next time he is home. I could smell him in his room - HIS smell...a combination of cologne and his body. It made me smile. I found both his Sunday shirts in the laundry room where he had them hanging by the dryer, so sent him a quick text message telling him to stop by a Walmart before Sunday to buy a white shirt for Sunday. His reply? 'I need my mommy'.
Yes he does...at least until he finds 'a wife'.