RJ, the RLA and I (MJ bailed ‘cause he didn’t think the RLA was coming) went down to the u-pic fields this morning. It’s getting harder and harder to find them, even in the most South Western nooks and crannies of Dade County. Instead of spreading green fields of tomatoes, strawberries and corn, or groves of mangoes, limes and avocados, there are town houses and estate homes. The RLA and I call them mushroom houses, because it seems like after every hard rain, a circle of them sprout up.

They have names like Mediterraneo and Vizcaya, but people, half a million price tag or no, they are still on Krome Avenue, west of which is only the tail end of the Everglades, and they are still in the middle of the great unwashed. I didn’t see a Neiman’s or even a Macy’s in those enormous strip malls today, but there was one each of BJ’s Wholesale Club, Super Wal-Mart, Max’s Something or Other denoting enormous quantities, and Costco. There were Targets and Home Depots and every other variety of big-box supercenters, and maybe two or three u-pics tucked in like stubborn stains of green on the other-wise beige knees of commerce. Or something like that.

RJ’s birthday cake, it all it’s sparkly glory. And yes, it was hot pink on the inside, too. Not quite the perfect maraschino cherry cake, yet, but getting really, really close.

This was in the Miami Herald this morning. It’s part of an on-going exercise in inanity and lameness, but today’s guest diva is someone I admire, and as part of my new year’s gift to you readers (more to come later) I pass it on in its entirety.

How does one become a true artist?

By the fact that you want to be one. I believe that anyone who wants to be an artist can be an artist. It all depends on your outlook on life and about yourself.

You have to know that you have in you all the possibilities that you want. You realize the possibilities by saying to yourself that you are an artist. Start from there and if you do not want to believe that, then why should anyone else believe in you? I always think rejection is temporary. You have a long life and the world is going to go on and on anyway, so you don’t have to be in a rush. Don’t be too impatient; life is very, very long. Realize that now as we speak, and all of a sudden things will happen; good things will come true and the right things will happen. You will get a lot of blessings and sometimes you don’t realize that they are blessings, because they often come in disguise. You are a person with big power and that power has to come out.

By letting it come out, you are actually doing a favor for yourself, the world and the universe.

Yoko Ono

But only on my tongue. In my steadfast belief that one should always get back on the horse that threw you, I spent last night drinking tangerine martinis with the PDB. I think I got up to five, but who's counting?

I did not get sick, despite the fact that dinner consisted of Shorty's BBQ (ribs, vinegar sauce, cole slaw and an ear of Very Greasy corn). I did not even get to the point of laying on the floor.

We drank and paid homage to our fathers and got weepy. We talked about the difference between art and craft. We looked at vintage magazines and analysed the styles, layouts and illustrations. We had fun, in a way that only art-school refuges can have fun.

Chin-chin, sweetiedarlings.

Tomorrow night, RJ is having a birthday par-tay for herself. I've promised to make a cake. I have no idea what cake that might turn out to be, but she's turning 50 and there seems to be a flamingo theme coming on.

I'm thinking that whatever I make, it will have pink icing. And probably be pink inside as well. This is the perfect time for me to find the ultimate marischino/red velvet cake recipe, but I'm not counting on the universe unfolding in quite such perfect synchronicity.

And for the rest of the three-day weekend, I will be sequestered with my code-writing books and I WILL (she says, shaking her fist at the sky) get this damn blog flipped to Expression Engine, because I am back to about 100 spam messages a day, and that, gentle readers, has gotten fucking old.

The Miami Herald's headline, the Boosh White House spin, the AP feed all claim that Gerald Ford "healed our nation" or "united our country" after Watergate. To which claims I call bullshit.

Excuse me, but Mr. Ford's legacy is not some sunny, morning in America era of peace and prosperity (that would have been Bill Clinton). No. Gerald Ford's contribution to American history is: he pardoned that rat bastard Richard Milhouse Nixon. Oh. And he launched Chevy Chase's career.

Let's review. Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in disgrace after it was revealed that he took bribes from contractors while he was Governor of Maryland. Took said bribes IN HIS OFFICE. And then, continued to accept them IN HIS OFFICE in the White House while he was the elected Vice President of the United States. Resigned in disgrace. Replaced, not elected, by Gerald Ford.

Then Richard Nixon, ditto. Forced to resign in disgrace after his role in Watergate and the subsequent cover-ups, stonewalling, demonizing, etc. (Karl Rove learned everything he knows about running a government in the Nixon White House.) was revealed.

And then, Gerald Ford pardoned him... PARDONED the rat bastard. And THAT unified a nation? In outrage, maybe. No, it was just the thin edge of the wedge in the virulent partisanship we see in our country/government today. After the slime and crime of the Nixon era, the Republicans managed to somehow claim the high ground and moral authority they so clearly did not and do not deserve.

Another state funeral for Boosh to preside over, and try to look like a worthy successor to the dearly departed. Considering what a failure Ford was, and what a devious, lying sack of shit Ronald Reagan was (Iran/Contra? Hello? Oliver North? AIDS?), one would think that even the asshat Shrub could look Presidential in that company. He fails completely, even by such low standards.

The only bright spot in this is that Betty Ford will be too classy a dame to pull a Nancy and kiss the coffin. Just make sure that Betty doesn't have a thermos and all will be fine. Maybe Chevy will get a couple of minutes in the spotlight, too.

I grew up in a Very Small Town in the south of Florida. My (extended) family was the entire Jewish population of said small town, and had my grandparent's house burned down in about 1956, the entire shtetl would have been eliminated, since we all lived in that same house.

Christmas time would come, and we would decorate our store (AFTER Thanksgiving, thankewverymuch) for same. We would drive down to Miami to the display wholesaler and pick up garlands, and bells and snowflakes and order our supplies of wrapping paper and ribbons. (Actually, this would happen way before Thanksgiving, the ordering and shopping for decorations.)

By Thanksgiving, my GirlCousin and I were making boxes, and curling ribbons, in preparation for the Christmas rush. Boxes. Hundreds and hundreds of shirt boxes and dress boxes and thousands of curled ribbon balls, neatly ordered like green and red checkerboards inside the tops of said boxes. All of them neatly stored under the display counters. The wrapping table would get set up. We would race each other to see who could wrap a box faster, tighter, and with the least number of pieces of tape. I think the record was 3 pieces of tape and under 30 seconds. Everyone in the store answered the phone by saying "Merry Christmas, Stuart Department Store."

My parents would pile my brother and me into the car and we would drive around town to look at the Christmas lights in other people's yards. Nothing says Christmas like a lit-up coconut palm, and don't try to tell me different. One good hard frost and the oranges would sweeten up on the trees, too.

For some reason, however, my whole life, my Christian friends thought that I "had no Christmas" and took it upon themselves to give me one. I have probably decorated as many or more Christmas trees than any Southern Baptist. I would get an invitation to one friend's home and then another. Come for eggnog and decorating the tree! Come for hot cocoa and tree decorating! Come and help us put up the tree! OK. Sure.

The Sistergirlfriendgirl and her family had Tiggywinkle ornaments. Those were the little hedgehogs from Beatrix Potter books. I LOVED the Tiggywinkles. Flash's family had delicate old glass balls from her grandparents. Another friend made popcorn strings. One year when I lived in New York, Bean and her mom decided that decorating the tree wasn't enough Christmas for a nice Jewish girl, and they took me out in a snowstorm to pick their tree out from a lot on Sixth Avenue, and then Bean and I then had to drag the damn monster all the way across the Village to their WestBeth apartment. Brilliant. One of my favorite Christmases, ever.

On Christmas Day, I always made sure that I had an invitation to the most Southern of my Southern friends' homes, because that meant a slice of left-over ham, pan fried and served up with red-eye gravy and grits with enough butter and tobasco sauce to choke the original pig. Or me. Yummmy. Red eye gravy.

Those are great memories. Thank the baby Jesus that nobody had become so brow-beaten into political correctness that I didn't get to have them. I was not, and my parents were not, hell, even my GRANDPARENTS were not offended that I was asked to be part of someone's Christmas celebration. Nobody thought that my friends were trying to convert me. Especially since I returned the favor by teaching them the freakin' dreidle song, and handing out chocolate Chanukkah gelt.

There was no breast-beating and fretting over whether or not we should say Merry Christmas to our customers. Well, in all honesty, probably because we knew for certain that we were the only Jews in town and so a Merry Christmas would not be unwelcome, but also because in those dark days, it was considered polite to express recognition of another's beliefs rather than trying to pretend that we all worship the same nebulous concept of holiness in some non-specific way that could offend nobody and everybody.

I am growing tired of political correctness, can you tell? I think we need a new definition of it. I think that political correctness should be me telling my Christian friends Happy Channukah and them telling me Merry Christmas and we all smile and say "YESH!" Does it matter? The bottom line is that we are wishing each other peace and joy.

Namaste. The god in me recognizes the god in you. We are all one. Merry Christmas to all, unless you prefer Happy Channukah. Or a bountiful Kwaanza. Or whatever.

Namaste.