My dirty little basement secret...

When we returned from England last winter we had less than six weeks to figure out our transition from analog to digital television. Long story short we upgraded two of the six televisions to HD--yes, in fact we do use six, ok? High-def baseball, football, Mad Men, Young and the Restless, Today Show's Matt Lauer and Law and Order. Fantastic, couldn't be better. The analog converter boxes for the old TVs have kept them working in the digital age...except for one.

The laundry room TV. An old black and white TV from my childhood, nearing its 35ish birthday. It's so old in fact that it doesn't possess the nubbin on which to attach a converter box to receive a digital signal. It still turns on despite its ancient body....but comparable to Hugh Hefner or George Hamilton "ought to be home praying for a happy death," as my dear old Uncle Jim used to say. I should have landfilled it with the others but I couldn't bear to part with this tangible piece of my childhood. My sister and I watched many an episode of Brady Bunch and Flintstones on this old friend.

It's hiding behind all the crap that hangs around by my washer and dryer. Up until the socialist takeover by the death panel advocate digital special interest groups, I would watch this TV by literally turning the dial to my favorite soaps as I folded or did laundry. I should have known by the cancellation of Guiding Light after 70 years that my laundry room was organized around a fragile house of cards called my nostalgia. The TV has sat idle since the move to digital and my laundry's been backing up.

Yet a true believer doesn't forget there are miracles around us every day. And so the other day feeling alone and lost in the laundry room, I flipped on the set on for a lark. Even the snowy noise was better than being alone, I thought. And lo and behold, two channels came through. Praise. Two channels with a similar theme. Hallelujah. Jesus refuses to be bound by the digital age! Turns out Ecclesiastes is a fine book of the Bible to fold laundry by.

I'm actually a long time connoisseur of televangelists dating back to the seventies with Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. My favorite crooks...er...preachers of all time, though, are the triumvirate of evil, Richard Roberts, Benny Hinn and my old Louisiana buddy, Robert Tilton. My whole family enjoyed Tilton as he often segued into tongues while preaching and begging for money. "The Lord shall sayeth, hobbibity bibbity that you shall walk...dibbidity doo bezahzah.....with your credit card to the phone..zimminy shizzah..."

Benny Hinn sported an elaborate comb-over that renders Donald Trump's coiffure an amateur effort. Benny's TV trademark was whacking people vigorously on the forehead to drive disease and pain out of their bodies. Bodyguards stood at the ready to catch the fallen and presumably cured as they melted to the floor with Benny's "coulda had a V-8" anointing.




Richard Roberts, the son of Oral Roberts, was probably the most mainstream of the three as he and his beautiful wife Lindsay (often pregnant) serenely preached from a chat-show-style set with a vibe so similar to Regis and Kathie Lee that it couldn't have been accidental. Richard also had his moments of speaking in tongues but not with the same enthusiasm or jazz-like scat that characterized Tilton's ministry. I've studied them all.

Of course all of them calculatingly and ruthlessly preying upon the lonely, the elderly and the infirm, taking money for prayer concerns which they then spent on lavish treats for themselves off-camera. All televangelists, some of whom I started watching on this very RCA Solid State set (The Bakkers' PTL Club was often the only thing on UHF back in high school on a day home sick on the sofa) are eventually exposed for their duplicitousness and all the aforementioned are in arrears to the tax man and in some cases, the law man.

And yet, the march of the televangelist apparently soldiers on broadcasting their shows on analog to those lonely few without converter boxes or cable or satellite--shut-ins like myself. A captive audience, lonely for a connection in a big world and willing to pay for it. I look forward to laundry folding again and reacquainting myself with the new crop of charlatans.



I just checked...boring old Pat Robertson. I'm looking for new blood. The hail is falling, Armageddon approaches.

I like this guy and all...

Tradition dictates in the year 2009 that I celebrate my nearest and dearest's birthdays with a few pictures and a visceral, loving post. My most public of relationships with the most private of feelings. Hmmm, I could go on and on about him and that would surely go the way of nauseating. But here's the bottom line distilled down from many to two main points:

He's the baby daddy and my biggest blog fan.

From Woman of a certain age

Literally, we have followed one another to the ends of the earth and that's been going on for about 25 years.

We feel an addiction to one another much like Whitney and Bobby do (let's not kid ourselves that that relationship is over) but the connection is and always has been over the spoken word. My dad has frequently commented through the years that he is baffled by our verbal shorthand...he claims he doesn't understand a thing we say to one another because it's all quick references and smart alecky remarks and banter.

And we do talk a lot. A minimum of three times a day on the phone unless there's a tee time bolloxing up my access. Little check-ins, to-do items, funny stories we won't remember later in the day, irritations, updates, guess what famous person dieds and you won't believe its--work day or not, we get a little twitchy if we don't have our chat time.

So not much to say here (since we've already talked once today) except...

There's nobody luckier in love than me. Happy Birthday Jibber. Call me.

Madison's Willy Street Fair will make it alright

"I'm not going to kick the can further down the road." President Obama about health care reform.







I love the phrase. I'm not living it in the slightest in my personal life but I still love it. My situation is more of a where'd I leave stuff ooh look at the butterfly forgetting to turn off the car ignition before getting out of the car kind of can-kicking. Not dealing well with even the most mundane list of tasks. Couldn't even blog until today because everytime I set keystroke to screen, it sounded complainy and fuzzy.

So far I still know how to get home...but I am keeping a close eye on myself and whether I put the keys in the fridge or not.



It seems when my kids go back to school, my September attention deficit disorder flares up. Schedules are full again, my mind is racing in neutral.

...sylla baked cookies...I should bake cookies....where are my keys?....what did I do with that bill I paid, it was supposed to go in the mail it's already late....back to school night....orthodontist....work....where are my keys?...mom's birthday is next week....what am I going to get Chip for his birthday....we're out of milk....what am I reading for book club?.....should we go to the wedding?....which car am I taking?....snacks for school lunches..I want a betta fish.....mammogram....Walgreens.....Whitney on Oprah.



Fabulous summer weather for the first three weeks of school, making going to work and sending kids off in the morning feel like we're in a wormhole.




The Willy Street Fair! That'll right my sails. A little afternoon Klezmer music and people watching whilst drinking Fat Tire beer along with the inspired purchase of a metal rooster planter on my favorite side of Madison. I can feel myself re-centering and re-entering. First things first, I bought myself a betta fish.