I haven't been able to FTP to the hospital's site since the middle of last week. That means changes have been piling up. I have told the server guys at least 5 times that my access is dead, but they have more urgent things to attend to. Like the zilliontythree viruses that seem to be living in our servers. Despite the firewalls.
This morning I deleted 230 messages that were merely the husks of deleted virus hosts. For some reason this makes me think of the Roach Motel slogan:

Bugs get in, but they can't get out. Like viruses on our servers, huh?

At home, I spent the whole weekend dodging phone calls and laying around in my bathrobe. But it was a good thing, and not the messy depression it sounds like. I also put away a month's worth of laundry, cleared out my closet of all the dark, shapeless schmatas I've gotten too small to wear, and cleared out my studio so that I can start working in it again.

And I finished the bottle of Crown Royal that I'd bought to make Washington Red Apples. That was scary fast work. Maybe I shared a lot, huh?

Well, despite the fact that I can't upload the changes, I still have a lot of them to make. So off to work. Hi-ho, and like that.

My cell phone rang. It was the RLA. He was sitting in the vet's office with the great and noble dog Nails. It seems that Nails had nailed a bufo toad, or some other poisonous fauna in our back yard and was having doggy hallucinations and some serious mouth-foaming. The RLA was waiting for the vet to come out of surgery and give an opinion. He'd triaged Nails at home (second round of Bufo Toad Wrestling) and the sturdy little Jack Russell Terrierist seemed to be holding his own, all things considered.

But jeez, could I get a break here?
The PHB is in full press "I can't wait to get started fucking up the web for you" mode, and thankfully has gone to a seminar (or so he says) and can't annoy me until Monday.

It is now Friday afternoon, and I've submitted my weekly report. In less than an hour I can start drinking, and since there's nothing pressing on the calendar for this weekend, I don't have to stop drinking until after Deadwood Sunday night.

Here's my newest favorite drinkie. Think of it as a Cosmo with cojones.

The Washington Red Apple

1 1/2 shots of Crown Royal
3/4 shot of Sour Apple Schnapps
Splash of cranberry juice

serve in a martini glass and if you really want to impress your friends, garnish with a spiral slice of apple

So which part of my life is now the worst? Is it A) Work, B) Thinking about my dead father or C) Trying to juggle the demands of an estate, an Alzheimer-riddled mother and her tyrannical nurse, my newly-needy brother and extended family members, several commissions, a start-up quilting partnership and a household?
Right. There is no answer, because they all suck crusty moose dick and my mind is skittering around over each of them like a drop of water in a really hot pan.

There is not enough alcohol, Sherman Fantasias and Prozac in the world right now for me.

Excuse me a second, I have to renegotiate a contract that the PHB fucked up, answer a call from my brother, and reformat 25 pages of content, and arrange to take a head shot of the employee of the month. Right. And then, in fifteen minutes, there will be another crisis or something else that I have to jump on and do right this fucking second .

You just know that things are not flowing smoothly when the first response you have to a ringing telephone is to shout "Leave me the fuck alone" at it before you pick it up and recite the party line about "How may I help you".

Gotta run, sweetiedarlings, I smell smoke coming from a fire that needs putting out.

The front page of today's Herald features two photos, in color, above the fold. They are two frames from the video of the murder of Nick Berg. The first shows him sitting on the floor, surrounded by masked men. The second shows one of the men holding Berg's head to one side as he applies the edge of his knife to Berg's throat.

Thank you. I think we all needed to see that. Mr. Berg's family surely needed to see that. Like hell.
The US government prevents us from seeing photos of our military coffins, citing security (hah!) and sensitivity to the families. But a civilian (Whom authorities now say was advised to leave Iraq, and if that isn't a case of the buck stops with the victim, I don't know what is.) being murdered as payback for a photo of a prisoner wearing a dog collar (Oh, yeah. That's a fucking eye for an eye, I'll tell you. I can surely see the corollary there, boy howdy.) well, that's just perfect fodder for the insatiable American viewing public.

Fuck me. I don't think so. And if I were the least bit paranoid, I would say that Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg had one thing in common other than having their cold-blooded murders paraded through the American press: they were both Jews.

If I were the least bit paranoid, I would say that one thing is what makes it acceptable to show their deaths.

But I'm not that paranoid. I think that the reason these brutal slayings are shown ad nauseum is because we need images like that to keep the determination to stay in Iraq alive in the hearts of the American people. This is just propaganda for the Bush mill. Bush and his lousy, filthy cadre of chickenhawks. Not a one of the high-ranking men in his administration served in the Viet Nam war. Not a one of them has a son or daughter in the military, at risk for the kind of death they allow to be broadcast nightly. They condone the demonization of the enemy, and then react with faux horror when the citizen soldiers of our own republic are found to have committed "atrocities" against the enemy.

A person cannot commit an atrocity against an enemy who looks like them, or has the same values as them. You need to create a demon in order to be able to maintain the fight. Our government is creating a demon in fact by its actions in Iraq, and a demon in the popular imagination by what they chose to allow to be shown to the American people.

And I for one, have had enough.

I said I'd be back, and here I am. First thing to do is to undo everything the boss did while I was gone. Second thing is to let my co-workers know that my father died, because the PHB* only told them he was in hospice. He knew about Daddy's death, because I called him immediately to let him know I'd be out for another week. He responded by having me walk him through how to add a row to a table in HTML.

There are just no words.
But then, the most amazing thing happened as a result of running my father's obituary in the Herald. When I was five and six, the family next door had a girl my age. Her name was Linda and we were inseparable. We rode our stick horses through the neighborhood, visiting. We climbed the rose apple tree. We were each others first, best friends. Then her family moved and we never saw each other again. Until yesterday. She lives here in Miami and saw the obituary, and saw that I lived here, and called me. She left a message, explaining who she was. As if she needed to say anything other than her name.

After 45 years, our conversation picked up exactly where it left off, albeit with better vocabulary and a somewhat broader life experience.

It turns out we have lived parallel lives, living in the same cities, only a year or two apart, the same neighborhoods, chosen the same careers.

My father is already putting things in order, it would seem.

* Pointy-haired-boss

Katie is an angel, and she led my father up the golden path and into the light. He was surrounded by people who loved him. I'll be back.

The Bob said it best in "Buckets of Rain"

"Life is sad, life is a bust
all you can do, is do what you must
You do what you must do
and you do it well."

But then, when doesn't, or didn't, the Bob say it best?
Today is crazy, hectic, madhouse, insane, busy. Tomorrow, I go back on the road north. With a box full of Dylan and Bruce to keep me company in the car.

I have a commission to finish, and I can't because I'm never home long enough to sew a seam. I have a tree full of mulberries, or it was before the rains came, and I can't pick them to make a pie. Assuming I'd have the time to bake one.

My office is in full-tilt boogie mode, meaning that my boss has left, but not before giving me a stack of work to do. Actually, he's been handing me stuff a page at a time all day, and asking where I am on the stuff he gave me before each time he hands me something new.

Not where I would be if you weren't handing me new crap and asking me how it's going... How's that for an answer?

Unacceptable, most likely. I must run, sweeties, there was someplace on the other side of campus I was supposed to be 15 minutes ago.

Yeah. I got a question for ya. I got it right here.

If the filter on our server can detect and delete viruses, then why the fuck can't it just delete the whole damn thing? Why the fuck do I have to spend my day deleting 200 freaking messages with the subject line of "Important" "Re: Your document" "Hello" "Pictures of You?"
Hello. It was a virus. I don't need to see the spam bot that sent it. And our own fucking servers are infected, or being highjacked, because the new spam is a photo of "lonely girl" who wants to be my friend. And no matter who she is, no matter what first name is used, the mailing address is a hospital server.

Proof Reading: something to be done before a document is approved. Is that so hard? Could that little rule of thumb be taught to the freaking head secretaries at this institution? Huh? Could it? Ya think? Because I have to say that I am really fucking over the whole, "Put this document on line as a PDF (which I am too fucking stupid to be able to create myself, as a head secretary, so you need to do it for me) ASAP and less than 24 hours later, I get the new document with the typos corrected repeat the PDF and ASAP process." I'm just saying.

Here's another tip: if you don't want to spend half an hour sobbing uncontrollably into your napkin, don't watch "Big Fish" if you have either lost a father, or are in the process of losing one. Other than that, the movie is a delight and a wonder.

Ewan McGregor. He can do anything, can't he? I love the smile he used in "Big Fish." It wasn't just a smile, it was, um... Well, every time he flashed it, in my minds eye I could see the big animated star-burst shiny twinkle off his teeth. It was a work of art. It was "ACTING" in all caps. It was brilliant and completely articulated the character.

Well, it's been fun, kiddies, but believe it or not, I actually have some content to post on the hospital's site. I'm sure it's inane, and out of date, and thoroughly pointless, but it is content, so there you are. I'm going to do some "real" work.

In Saturday's Herald was a column by Ana Veciana-Suarez (and let me say right now that I usually read and enjoy her column.... Well, maybe enjoy is a little strong, but I read her regularly and don't gag, so enjoy it is) tackling the weighty issue of Bob Dylan's Victoria's Secret ads. You can read what she has to say here.
This is the response (quite measured, compared to my usual rants, or so the RLA says) that I sent to the Herald. For reasons that will be quite obvious, it'll never see light of day on the Herald's pages, so I present it to you in its entirety.

Last March I wrote the following on my blog:

"More Things I Wish I Never Saw
Friday, March 14, 2003

Last night: TV was on and I was doing a little hand sewing. I hear Bob Dylan's voice and music coming from the TV. I look up. It's an ad for Victoria's Secret.

I shake my head and check the contents of my glass, but no. I am sober and I am straight and that is Bob Dylan being used to advertise women's lingerie. For the past 30 years my friends have ridiculed me for my lewd fantasies involving me and the Bob. Is it possible that someone out there in advertising land thinks that 61-year-old skank is sexy? And sold the concept to a multi-million dollar industry that is, essentially, selling sexual fantasy? Because, let's be honest, Vicky's Secret makes stuff that barely fits and doesn't last. Bob Dylan? Sexual fantasy? To someone other than me?

Frightening. Very, very frightening. Disturbing, even."

That entry received no comments, and the fact that Bob was selling his music to Victoria's Secret passed unremarked upon in most of the popular press. There was barely a ripple about it on the various authorized and unauthorized fan sites.

What a difference a year and a face makes. The current incarnation of this campaign, which shows the ragged old face of my idol, garnered 17,400 hits when I Googled it just now.

Many people have referenced the apocryphal interview of 1965 wherein Mr. Dylan is alleged to have said that he would be willing to sell out for ladies' undergarments. But has anyone actually pulled that interview and quote out of the ether? No. (Google count for that reference? A mere 137 hits, none of which is specific as to where the interview was, or with whom.)

I am not a Dylanologist, but I am a fan. By that, I mean that I have watched and listened and appreciated him over the span of 40 years as his musical interests have changed, as he has donned and discarded his masks (both figurative and literal).

When Ms. Veciana-Suarez decries this latest Dylan event, and says she wants Dylan to be Dylan, what she is really asking of the man who defines mercurial is to be trapped in the amber of time: specifically a time thirty years ago. Has she listened to Time Out of Mind, or Love and Theft? There are no protest songs on either of those, his two most recent albums. There is knowledge of mortality; there is lovesickness and sorrow; there is some fierce rock-a-billy piano work.

So Dylan is selling lingerie? So what. With so much going on in this world, so much, in fact that Ms. Veciana-Suarez would like to see Dylan sing about, why doesn?t she pen a protest of those things, and quit staring into the belly-button lint of throw-away culture?

And thankfully, it was only a test. But when a crusty old fart like my father calls before 9 in the morning to tell you that he wants his family at his hospital bedside, and that said family means you, your husband and your dog, well you just better believe that tracks were made, rubber was burned, etc.

By the time we were crossing the bridge over the South Fork of the St. Lucie (what, three hours after the call?) the old man was grousing that he couldn't understand why we came up right then. Tomorrow would have been fine. Jeez, the way he and my brother were carrying on, we didn't think that there'd be a tomorrow.

By the time we left, yesterday, the old man was giving all of us shit. He's feeling better. The more that he griped, the happier we were.

And now I'm back at the office, grabbing my ankles and saying "Thank you, ma'am, may I have another?"

That was the subject line of the following e-mail. This has to be one of the saddest things I've ever seen come across the virtual transom. This person is trying to apply for a job at the hospital. She wants to be a clerical worker. Here is her e-mail, in its entirety. Only the names and addresses have been removed to protect the guilty.
"I TRAY TO APPLY BY THE APPLICATION BUT SOMETHING HAPPEN WITH THE COMPUTER

I APPLY NOW I F YOUR LET ME APPLY HERE


I APPLY FOR CLERICAL POSITION HERE MY RESUME


Education: English Center August, 1996

Miami Senior HJ August, 1993



Certificates: Business Computer

Application 1

December, 1993

D-Base

April, 1996

Lotus-Beginning Intermediate

April, 1996

Medical office Technology

August, 1996

Windows 95

August, 1996

Business Communication

August, 1996

Ms-Dos

August, 1996



Languages: English and Spanish



References: The English Center

Principal Diaz Fugue.



Work Experience: I have Experience in Teacher Assistant.

When I was in HJ School 1993



Let me work with your for vonlunteer for

One week if any to."

This is just so sad. And she sent it twice, with the same mistakes both times. I forwarded it to the HR department, because who am I to say she isn't qualified to work here? Just because she can't spell or use spell check? Hell, I have vice presidents who can't turn on their own computers, so why should a secretary have to be able to write in English? It's not like it's our primary language in this city, after all.

Another conversation on the train this week was with a woman serving jury duty at the Federal Courthouse. The room was filled to capacity, standing room only, she said. And then they made an announcement that if you didn't think you could speak/understand English well enough to follow along, you could be excused. (No matter that there are translators in the courts.) Two thirds of the room left. And I know she wasn't exaggerating, because the same thing happened to me last year. The room holds several hundred people.

Don't be fooled by the mass exodus, however. Most of the folks who left probably do speak/read/understand English. They just don't want to serve on a jury. Why? Who knows. I sure as hell don't.

The Anti-Christ (my ex-husband) is a criminal defense attorney. The ideal juror is one who doesn't read a newspaper, or listen to the news on the radio, or watch the news on TV. The ideal juror has a flexible view of right and wrong, and an IQ somewhere around dishwater. The idea that those kinds of people could be my peers (jury of one's peers?) makes my blood run cold. Just another reason to keep the proverbial nose clean, then.

I had the most interesting exchange on the train this morning. There was a woman sitting near me with a "Kerry for President" button on her backpack. She also had two boxes of aroma-emitting pastries, but I wasn't interested (Hah. Yeah. Right) in them.

I asked her if she'd heard many comments about her button. She said no, not so much, yet.
I asked her if she was FOR Kerry, or AGAINST Bush. She said, oh man, against Bush. In fact, she said, she had become an American citizen after the 2000 election just so that she could vote against him this year. "I come from Brazil," she said "and so am used to a certain amount of bad stuff, but that? I had to be able to vote to stop this."

She went on to say that there is a fine line between anarchy and democracy, and she sees Bush heading towards anarchy, where he does what he wants and there is no one to stop him. We talked about "The Handmaid's Tale" and how close to the present state of affairs it is. Then we talked about "Wag the Dog" and how it, too, is too eerily close to the truth of our current administration.

I wish more citizens felt like her. That it is our duty, our obligation, to vote. Every time I hear someone say that they don't vote because they don't like the choices, or because they don't believe their vote counts, I could just pull out my hair. Or theirs. Votes don't count only when you don't cast them. Or if you allow them not to count.

In Florida, in the 2000 election, our votes were disallowed by a state government run by the brother of one of the candidates. When the propriety of this was questioned, we were drowned out by the paid voices of the Republican operatives brought in from around the country. The brother in question was appointed President of the United States, and every time he is questioned, the questioner is drowned out by the paid voices of the right wing media. It has become a crime in effect, if not in actual law, to question the government.

But read your constitution. Read your Thomas Jefferson. It is not a crime, it is the duty of every citizen to question the decisions made by our government. If we, as citizens, do not agree with those decisions, then it is our obligation to remove the people speaking in our name.

Regime change begins with you. If you aren't registered to vote, then go out and register. If you don't want to belong to either of the two major parties, then register as an independent, or a Libertarian, or a Green. Just register. Then, just vote.

Until you do, don't complain to me that your vote doesn't count, or that you don't like what's going on in Washington.

I'm always hearing people say that the one thing they hate about Florida (aside from the utter incivility of our drivers) (and our dinosaur-sized cockroaches) (and the humidity) (and the heat), the Number One thing that they hate about Florida is that there is no change of season.

To those people I say: "Open your eyes, and your ears, and your noses." (I also say, "Shut your yap and go home then, and while you're at it, take all of your friends, too.)
It is spring here in my home, and it screams its presence at me as much as the cherry blossoms along the Potomac does to the folks up north. There are baby mangos clinging to the trees, and the branches are starting to droop from the weight. Orchids are blooming. There are Surinam cherries everywhere.

One of my favorite childhood foraging foods, I used to love to watch the looks on the other student's faces when I'd eat the cherries from the bush in front of the art studios at the University of Miami. To anyone born outside of their range, they look like the poster child for your parent's warning to never eat red berries from strange plants, it's probably poisonous.

There are sandhill cranes along the highway. I hear the metallic "Cheek" of the cardinals nesting out in the cherry hedges. The rare, or at least isolated population of Red-Whiskered Bulbuls has come back to my yard to eat the mulberries. The mulberries are staining my dog purple when he goes out to play in the back yard. Possums and raccoons are starting families, and so are out at night, looking for cat food, or at least garbage cans or bugs.

The air is starting to get heavy and moist, more palpable against your skin. Soon the rains will come, and every afternoon the storms will build up out west, over the Everglades, and move across to the sea. With that comes the smell of wet and salt and rotting foliage.

And that, my dear blind and deaf friends, is how you know that spring has come to South Florida.

My date last night was called due to server problems, and we have rescheduled for next week. I'm sorry that I can't report on snappy repartee and drunken frivolity. It'll just have to wait.

This weekend isn't going to be fun, at all. I'm off to visit my father in the hospital. That he's willing to be seen in a weakened state says all one needs to know about the situation.
On the work side of life, I live in an absurdist movie. I was asked yesterday, in the most off-hand way, to take "some photos" "for the web." The real request was for 70-80 portrait-style head shots, printed on glossy photo paper and framed. Maybe they'll go on the web, later.

I tried to explain that my little 3 mega-pixel, fixed-flash digital camera was not the optimal equipment with which to attempt portraits, and suggested that they'd look more like mug shots than head shots. I tip-toed around the issue of not being able to print on glossy photo paper. I suggested that maybe the PR office would be a better source, or, and here's a real fucking leap, maybe, just maybe, they should go to the office of biomedical Communications, where there is an actual portrait studio set up for doing physicians' head shots, and where there is a full-time photographer, and a lab.

I was told that it would be too expensive over there, because it comes out to be about ten dollars a shot. And reasonable at twice the price, I said. Yes, but we can't afford that. We need to do this as cheap as possible. And what is the project? For what reason are we shooting a team of 80 people? Why it's the newest revenue recovery team. It's part of our Quality Improvement effort.

I could cry. Or I could send the story to Dilbert. Scott Adams is going to have to start paying me for all the subject matter I give him.

Time to call the RLA and tell him to get the ice shaver ready for tonight.

So you know you're having way too much fun when you call your husband from a bar 30 miles from home and tell him that you and your girlfriend are thinking that it'd just be easier all the way around to get a hotel room for the night and you'll just go to work the next morning wearing the same thing you wore the day before. Minus the make up, and the coiffed hair and with the addition of a major hangover.
I went out last night with The Coolest Person In the World ^TM and that was the result. After dinner and a whole lot of coffee, however, I just took the top off the Cabrio and turned the music up to 11 and drove home.

Today is the bologna in the cool sandwich, since tomorrow night I'm going out with a fellow blogger. It's our first time meeting face to face, and I plan on not embarrassing myself. I plan on it, but can't guarantee it. In a pathetic attempt to prove my cool, I'll be taking said blogger to Tobacco Road, the best damn dive in Miami, and one in which I have sucked face in dark corners, drunk myself into a commode-huggin' state (not necessarily on the same nights) and enjoyed many, many hours of great live music. Even if I'm a dork, the bar will score points.

Another reason last night was so great was that I was able to miss the 3rd televised press conference in as many years given by our Shrub in Chief. I did pick up the highlight this morning, which was that the man was sure he had made a mistake or two somewhere in his presidency, he just couldn't quite put his finger on one at the moment.

I can. Here's the short list, and please, feel free to add others.

Stole election
Appointed cronies to high offices
Let 9/11 happen without much thought or effort
Lied about the need to go to war in Iraq
Lied about the ease with which said war could be won
Lied about having knowledge or not having knowledge prior to 9/11 that there was a risk
Continues to lie about all of the above
Refuses to accept any responsibility for anything
High crimes and misdemeanors
IQ of a fence post

OK. So there's nothing he can do about the last one. As far as I'm concerned, it's still an offence worth noting.

On a related (pun intended) note, the Brother of the President, Florida's own Jeb (I'll make sure you win this state) Bush has given fast-track approval to built two natural-gas pipelines from the Bahamas to Florida. They both go straight through the only natural, live barrier reef in the continental US. And guess what? He did it with no input whatsoever from environmental groups, but after a month-long "education" program from the power companies who made the proposals.

Read the story here.