Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

I am Spider-Man

Spider-Man 90% Wonder Woman 88% Green Lantern 85% Superman 80% Iron Man 80% Supergirl 73% Robin 60% Catwoman 60% The Flash 50% Hulk 45% Batman 40%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the “Which Superhero are you?” quiz…

Five things you don’t know about me, since Elaine of Kalilily tagged me ….

1. I wanted to be a car hop when I grew up. The short-skirted, majorette-booted teen waitresses in 1950s drive-up restaurants were my ideal of beauty, competence, and freedom.
2. I fell in love when I was 12 with an 18 year-old boy who (I hope!) never noticed. In an agony of love, one night in my bedroom, trying to think of something that I could do to make myself so beautiful that he’d notice me, I poured three different kinds of perfume into a teacup and dipped the ends of all my ten fingers in the mixture. At that point, my sense of humor must have kicked in, because I don’t remember ever thinking about that boy again. Well, I still remember his name–but I won’t tell Google.
3. You might think I bounce around a lot–next month I’ll be blog-posting from Chile and Japan. But I’m one of the least exotic members of my NH diaspora. One of my dearest NH friends is visiting us right now from Vienna. Another just moved from London to Hong Kong. And a bunch of my favorite NH-ites now gather each Christmas for what is (among them) a convenient, central location…Cairo, Egypt.
4. So I shouldn’t be blogging right now, I should be entertaining Diane! OK, my desk is so messy it would make Steve Rubel faint.
5. I asked Frank if I could instead tell you five things you don’t know about Frank Wilczek–he said, “I haven’t been tagged, and you have.”

So now I tag Frank–he can post his five answers here, if he’s willing. And Dave Winer, if he’ll play. And Julie and Lisa and Dervala, because I miss them!

Whew–the presents and parties are over, the cooking (except for some cookies yet to come) a memory.

Merry post-Christmas, friends. This is the best of times, not the worst of times. Best because the exhausting hubbub is over. Everyone liked the presents we gave them (or at least claimed they did.) Whew. And I really liked getting presents myself!

What we want is to love and know we are loved and to imagine a world that lives up to the purity of that feeling.

Thus today’s Christmas editorial in the NYT. So undeniably true that it’s pretty generic.

A different article spoke to my Christmas spirit, about a once-rural church that no longer wants to be called Hog Mountain Baptist. “Hamilton Mill”, the name of a nearby suburb, sounds better to them.

Yes, I celebrate Christmas now with presents and parties and family and cooking and more talk of winter solstice than of religious solace. But in offering my chosen a la carte Christmas to family, in a sense I’m re-naming my childhood’s Hog Mountain as “Hamilton Mill.”

Another day, another happy iguana

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

… I’m just very busy thinking about Christmas.

Wishing you too a lovely solsticean holiday of your own choosing!

Happy birthday in St. Thomas…

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

What I’ve been up to….

… to my own 60th birthday, early next week.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2006/12/04/aging_mother/index1.html

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/12/04/senior_std/index.html

Front door making a snow angel

Originally uploaded by betsythedevine.

Brrrr, it’s below 30 degrees this morning.

This winter has been a very long time coming. But — hello, furnace, your summer vacation just ended!

The snow in this picture? Not here yet, that photo’s from February. Just my little hint to the weather gods for a white Christmas.

On Monday, December 4, Democrats and Republicans were set to battle once more about NH’s phone-jamming scandal–but on Friday, December 1, NH Democrats ended their lawsuit in exchange for an undisclosed settlement.

How much did the Democrats get? In between (it’s a wide range) $4,974 and $4.1 million (John DiStaso, November 30). Even the higher figure wouldn’t seem like too much for a list of defendants that included (among many others) the Republican National Committee, which spent millions already on James Tobin’s defense.

NH Democratic State Chair Kathy Sullivan, who told the AP she would issue a statement Saturday, has insisted the Democrats’ civil suit had been filed to obtain answers, not money.

Even so, as the case dragged on, year after year, its burden on NH Democrats and their lawyers has been heavy. Republican lawyers filed motion after motion, seeking to dismiss or delay the lawsuit. Even when Judge Mangones finally let Democrats question some of the DC higher-ups who might be implicated, stonewalling just moved to a higher level.

From John DiStaso’s November 2 “Granite Status” column:

Darrell Henry, a former energy industry lobbyist,.. refused to answer any of about two dozen questions related to the phone-jamming operation.

McGee had testified at the trial of convicted conspirator James Tobin that when the phone-jam was called off early on election day, Henry offered to contact associates in Washington to continue it.

When Sandler asked about what he told McGee, Henry said, “I assert my privilege.”

Henry, on advice of counsel, gave that answer to just about everything, even when he was asked to describe his educational background and employment history.

Maybe now that Democrats have broken the Republican stranglehold on House and Senate, an independent prosecutor may be able to get answers to questions that NH’s Bush-appointed US Attorney never chased down.

Today, NH Democrats gave up on trying.