God Bless the Hillbilly...please!?

It’s a curious thing that there is a tendency among people, and the groups they form, to cast a most favourable light on themselves. The cohesive “we are the good ones,” which in U.S. jargon translates into “God Bless America,” is the cradle of a pervasive double standard. It leads to all sorts of ill-guided approaches in dealing with “the other” and can go as far as causing acts of violence on both sides. Terrorism, persecution, sabbotage, boycots, and ultimately war are all outcrops of double standards.

While admittedly simplistic, “God Bless America” has become a powerful slogan that sanctifies virtually anything, America stands for. Under the great mantra of “we are the chosen ones” only few Americans ever question the underlying tenents of the blessed U.S. of A.

As should be obvious to anyone, this fateful arrogance has over the past decade caused a great deal of misery for Americans. Gone crazy consumerism combined with a testosterone driven everything-is-possible attitude has knocked US credit rating down to a most embarrassing AA rating and families bereft of their adored plywood Mac Mansions have taken to camping in inclement conditions.

It’s a good thing Wall Street is under attack these days, but the clean up should go deeper than that. Surely, it’s uncomfortable and will be the cause of much anxiety but it would be a worthy exercise and, who knows, maybe God may bless America again...some day!

On the other hand...

...considering that we are whirling at 67,000 mph through a vast and pretty much empty space, seven billion sixhundredeightythousandeighthundredsixtynine humans on planet Earth is a comforting thought...

My Fall

I don’t know how your fall has been so far, but mine has been exactly that: a deeper than ever tumble into the depths of motherhood...ah, and just as I have sat down here to whine about it all, in comes a phone call from Zoe...and off I go to pick her up because she missed her ride - did I say too much?

Back again... So, on my way back from school, I also picked up Julian’s bike from the shop and a pint of milk from the store since I never leave the house for just one errant - I can’t, I virtually would have to quit eating a sit-down meal all together. As it is, I only have one of those a day anyway.

I have given up on breakfast ever since the daily fights over the bathroom began...I could have changed my routine a gotten up earlier to resolve it, but that would mean earlier nights on the other end and since I only get to see Matt in the evening, I decided to go for plan B...a protein-joghurt shake on the run.

So let’s see what else did I accomplished today...? After a brisk and very wet walk to school, I sold used children’s books at the canteen to raise $$ for the class trip and after 1.5 hours had brought in a whopping 17.00GBP!! When there was no further hope of talking an unsuspecting fellow parent into buying an almost new copy of Winnie the Pooh, I hauled the sad rejects back and decided that maybe class trips are over-rated anyway.

Next was the wash - three loads - the dishes, chili con carne and a futile effort to fix the recessed lighting in the kitchen, which ended up tripping a fuse and subsequently also blowing out the fridge which shrewedly went into defrost mode over the rest of the morning.

Next I wrote on a monologue for yet another fundraiser - this time to restore the clock house - an epic endeavor. But this one should be fun, given that it can’t possibly be any worse than the first one I staged. There came a moment during that performance when I actually thought that to cut my losses, I should just drop the microphone and put the house on the market. That was last month.

Since then, I had the flu, travelled to Lisbon for a reunion where nobody showed up except for Matt, watched the school musical five times in a row (because Zoë, after years of being cast and recast as a Viking, finally scored a female lead), and made lanterns, a dragon head, and seventeen calendars depicting every inch of our existence in order to quench any requests for pictures - forever!

I also made three sour dough Friendship Cakes that nobody wants to eat because they suck (don’t ever get talked into making a cake called Herman!), and nit-checked diligently every Wednesday as ordered by the school nurse...actually I skipped the last two times....

Anyway, my fall has been a blurr of maddening hyper-activity tempered only by a few hours of restless sleep here and there with my face esconded between seven downy purple pillows, that and a walk through the olive garden of São Jorge.

I don’t know where it all will end...it says pride comes before the fall but I wonder what comes after?

Broken Dreams

Our wish for freedom, mobility, opportunity as well as our search for happiness define what we consume from cars to musli and ebooks.

But almost more importantly, they define the well-tuned marketing machinery that fuels our consumption habits. Because virtually anything can be marketed as ticking at least one or two of the boxes.

A car may promise freedom and mobility in one ad and maybe opportunity and happiness in another. And the same is true for most things ranging from soft drinks to life insurances.

Most successful of all, smart phones have quickly become our new best friends because they seemingly tick all the boxes. After all what could be more perfect than a gadget that gives you instant access to virtually unlimited information, entertainment, and people?

Like children in a pink cotton candy world, we are living out our sweetest dreams with the one difference being that we usually pay for them.

But what happens, when they brake, because they usually do. What do we do when the pictures from our Blackberry don’t load onto the iMac, what if the slide show we spent hours on froze and folded? What if that brand new car has a clunky gear shift, or the five star dishwasher is slow? What if the dream we bought doesn’t work?

Usually at that point the nightmare starts. We spend endless hours searching for warranties in old cardboard boxes and browse through endless online chats and waste many agonizing minute explaining in detail the truly frustrating experience to a blatantly indifferent Bangladeshi.

In the end, more often than not, we end up putting more money down to purchase the new and improved version, the upgraded dream, and hope that this time surely it will last....

Mug Shots

When you wonder how and when bankers became bankers, or why some people are just in it for themselves, just think back to your high school class. They were all there then and they haven’t changed: the notorious liers, tricksters, bigots, socio-paths, and...yes, loosers, their mug shots are all neatly lined up in your yearbook and those of your friends. People don’t just change over night even if your average Newborn Christian will swear they have found the light. Well, yes, maybe in their closet.

Too Much of Nothing

We all bemoan the impending death of the bookstore and yet I admit, I haven't supported one lately. For one, the only ones that survive in today’s online ordering business and Kindlemania are either the very specialized ones, the secondhand bargain ones or the nondescript “whatever sells” kind.

When I browse through the titles on the shelves, I can’t help but feel a strong urge to yawn at the sight of yet another teenage fantasy triology, celebrity memoire, ten-steps guide to utmost riches, love, and/or happiness, or else a trite fivehundred page romance novel. Boring!

Where are the witty short stories? Where are the daring one volume only best story ever books? Where is the content? What I see has all been there before.

Authors and their agents apparently have to keep trends and mass tastes in mind because their publishers are struggling to hit their numbers (or so they say).

Some of the best authors probably keep their stuff in the drawer, because the story they tell is a quiet one, one that doesn’t have Hollywood potential. I guess they could always self-publish on line. And there goes the idea of the independent bookshop.

In our village, we have five cafés and ten restaurants. I guess virtual eating hasn’t come en vogue yet.