So There I was…

Just driving down the road, daydreaming, watching the clouds float by, thinking about Hurricane Katrina and Gustav, Palin, pregnant teenagers, right-to-lifer’s, hypocrisy, color printers and raw files, j-pegs, Adobe Acrobat, PDF files, the Sandia Mountains, Lulu, my steering wheel, NPR droning in the background…

…And I suddenly realized that just about everyone in the entire world drives around like this; thinking of a thousand things at a time, distracted, and barreling along at 75 mph.

Well, no wonder that dude almost rear-ended me the other day! Scared the crap out of me! It was raining and I was getting off the freeway when the traffic came to a sudden halt. The dude behind me wasn’t paying attention and almost hit me. Instead, he quickly turned onto the left shoulder and ended-up next to me. I looked at him and smiled. He looked at me and shook his head. It scared both of us and, despite our wildly beating hearts, we were okay. Another close call on Hell’s Highway: I-40.

It had been raining and the clouds were dark, ominous, full of impending doom and totally stunning. The sun, just about to set, threw colors into sky-puddles sending rays of ricocheted rainbows onto the evening canvas. It was hard to look at anything else, much less the road.

When I got home, S was watching all of the news about Hurricane Gustav. And I mean ALL of the news. When I watch television, I will flip when commercials come on and watch two shows at a time. S hates when I do that and usually leaves the room. Today, she was flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and The Weather Channel. Drove. Me. Nuts. I guess you’d call that Karma. I call it seriously addicted. I mean, really, I don’t understand it: they were all showing the same danged thing and saying the same danged things! Although, I do think that dude on The Weather Channel, Jim Somethingorother, is kinda cute. Whatev… Gustav and Palin are both on my radar far too much.

What is up with this whole, “She’s such a wonderful mother and role model and her 17 year old daughter is going to KEEP THE CHILD AND GET MARRIED!” gushing, as if that’s such a good thing. I mean, no one is talking about the fact that Palin is strictly an abstinence teachin’, preachin’, imposin’ Guv and her own daughter, at the age of 17, didn’t refrain or stand in abstinence. If that isn’t a *testament*, I don’t know what is… I saw those photos of the daughter, standing on stage, holding her infant brother against her own flourishing belly, hiding a child behind another child, and thought to myself, ‘My God. What must that poor kid be thinking about? She must be scared shitless.’

And I’m sick of hearing about it, already, but want to say, “Oh, for God’s sake! Palin is scary! Scarier that McSame! Scarier than Cheney! She’s more dangerous, in her backward, NRA, anti-abortion, anti-woman, hypocritical, “She Sure As Hell Ain’t No Hillary!” woman-self, than any other politician McInsane could have chosen. Sure, she’s cute and looks a little like Tina Fey (sorry Tina) and plays like a beauty queen. The Republican spin is that she’s got *executive* experience. Okay, okay… she does a little… like, I don’t know, what’s the population of Alaska? 700,000 people? And, yeah, she’s wrassled with bears and elk and deer and state troopers (oh, wait, that’s family), and taken on Big Oil (um, exactly how?). The specific examples are few and far between. Most importantly, she’s traipsing around Alaska, Michigan, Ohio, soon to be New Mexico, and has no idea what her SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD DAUGHTER IS UP TO. (Although, now she can potentially rely on the Secret Service to keep tabs on her. In the irreverent voice of Church Lady, “Well, isn’t that special?”) I’m wondering if she ever had that “little talk” with her daughter and what a “little talk” would look like if she had to speak with the prime minister of (insert country) and guess it would succumb to the McSame conclusions. *pregnant pause* Obviously, McStain has quite a disdain for the VP position and his choice is all about getting the Hail Mary Far Right to chime in and vote for him.

Ugh.

There. I’ve said it and I’m sick of it and I hope it all just blows away, like Gustav, and doesn’t break the levees, like Gustav, and doesn’t give the wrong people hope, like Gustav. ‘Cause you know what will happen, right? Katrina (bush) was a major, major catastrophe. People reacted to Gustav appropriately; they got away, had a better plan, lives were saved. So, they go home. A week later, Ike threatens and instead of evacuating, having a plan, doing the right thing, saving lives, thinking with clear, calm heads, they ignore and stay in the status quo… and then the levees fill and the Army Core of Engineers tells them to trust them, they’ve taken care of it, it’s going to be okay, it’s only a trickle of trouble.

While the storm clouds, full of impending doom and brilliant colors, flash and dazzle… and the dude behind you is so enthralled that he creeps up into your ass, crashes, and takes over your world.

Analogize that!