Posted on 06/16/2004 7:20:18 AM PDT by Timeout
It's been raining for 5 days straight here on the Gulf Coast. 6 inches Monday and another 6 on Tuesday. Computer blipping off and on. Lighting r-r-r-r-r-rips the sky. Constant thunder renders kitty to a helpless blob, head "hiding" in her armpit for hours at a time.
Nothing discourages the young cardinal couple with their nest in the azalea at the end of the drive. Heedless of the downpour, they show up on schedule for their morning ration of bread crumbs. The bread turns to instant mush, but somehow they fill their beaks and return to the nest.
I've loved thunderstorms all my life. As children, we spent those rainy days with toys never touched when the sun was shining...Sugarland, Scrabble, paper dolls, usually played in a "fort" made with blankets thrown over the dining room table. And cooking. When rain kept us indoors for days on end, my mother started cooking...and cooking...and cooking. Casseroles, cookies, pies, shelling peas, soups...you name it, we cooked it. To this day, when it pours, I cook. Soggy therapy, I guess.
In California, a thunderstorm was a rare event. We rarely saw lightning or woke to the rumble of thunder. For me it was like an amputation, going through summer with no flashbang. In later years, my job required me to drive across the Mojave Desert frequently. There was always a thunderstorm in the late afternoon. Now THAT was a lightning show!
Anyone else avoid the Rather-Clinton lovefest? I knew I couldn't stomach it, and didn't even visit the live thread at FR. A local radio guy played some soundbites this morning (along with his "BS detector," which is the sound of a cow mooing), and it was as disgusting as I feared.
After he came clean about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Bill Clinton was haunted by fears that his daughter, Chelsea, would never forgive him. "I was afraid that I would lose not only my marriage but my daughter's love and respect as well," the former President said on "60 Minutes" last night.
"You know, my daughter is a remarkable person. But she has her own opinions. She has strong convictions," he added.
"Sooner or later, every child learns that his or her parents are not perfect. But this was way beyond that, and it was a big dose to swallow." [tell me he didn't say that!] source
Another FOB heard from:
Why should Denise Rich be the only one on her block who doesn't have her own reality show? Clearly, she should not. And apparently this gross injustice is soon to be corrected. The fabulously, flamboyantly wealthy R&B songwriter is plotting to join the ranks of Donald Trump, Lizzie Grubman, Rick and Kathy Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith, among others. "People keep coming over to me and saying, 'When are you going to do a reality show?' It's many different people from all walks of life."
The 60-year-old ex-wife of Marc Rich, who won a pardon from Bill Clinton, plans to focus on developing a concept for the show after her July 10 cancer research fund-raiser at her Southampton estate - at which a Rolls-Royce will be auctioned off for the charity. "A show would, first of all, be a lot of fun, and it could help me with my G&P Foundation and my philanthropic endeavors and also help me with my music career, - that kind of exposure is always good," Rich said. "I just need to develop a concept."
Any suggestions? Send them here. Ny Daily News
Last night I watched The Godfather. Remember Diane Keaton's character, Kay? I always knew Peggy Noonan reminded me of someone....she's a dead ringer for the young Kay Corleone!
_________________________________________
I said such nice things above about the lightning, but it got me anyway Friday night. Fried my TV, VCR and ethernet modem. So no internet for me until this evening (I'm on my client's computer now). I watched Slick on a 13 in. TV..he looked puny. I still wish someone would ask him how he squares his conduct with the sexual harrassment attitude of his party and the media from the time of Clarence Thomas right up to the day Monicagate broke. We were swamped with sex harrassment stories up until 1998. Now, ask yourself when you last read or heard a report on the subject???
The competing munchables are Laura Bush's oatmeal-chocolate chunk cookies, and Teresa Heinz Kerry's pumpkin spice cookies. Home bakers are invited to put them to the taste test and vote in their favorite.
Click for the recipes. I'll stick with the chocolate chunks! Can't imagine Teresa with her hands in the pumpkin.
None of us can imagine Teresa baking anything. Several months ago, there was a photo of her on the campaign plane passing out brownies she supposedly made. Unless they were filled with prozac, I doubt it. :)
We live in a wooded area, charlie is just a fact of life.:)
We live on the Prairie. We've lived on this property almost 37 years and last year was the first I'd noticed any Charlie at all on our property.
I know it's possible to drag Charlie in from Commercial Nurserys, but it started in the lawn, not in my borders. Do you know if it is airborne? It's the only reasonable explaination I can think of.
It's a sad state of affairs when we can say a presidential candidate's wife would put Prozac in her brownies - and only "kind of" be kidding! Speaking of the dysfunctional, from PageSix:
BILL CLINTON let the jokes fly last night as he presided over the Big Apple's hottest party, celebrating the publication of his memoirs, "My Life."
Clinton, along with his senator wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea, were the stars of the Metropolitan Museum of Art gala, with Chelsea's boyfriend, Ian Klaus, also getting plenty of looks.
"By the time I finished working on the book, I was about down to the minimum wage with all the time I put into it," Clinton quipped to the crowd of movers and shakers who came to toast him.
He added, "I hope my publisher gets his money back."
Among the 1,000 guests who showed were: Barbara Walters, Star Jones, Andy Rooney, Don Hewitt, Charlie Rose, Ken Burns, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Judy Collins, Phoebe Snow, Maurice Tempelsman, Toni Morrison, Lauren Bacall, Natalie Portman (slumming it in shorts and high heels!) Sirio Maccione and Jonathan Tisch.
Also there were Clinton's former press secretary George Stepanopoulous, Al Franken, Winona Ryder, Larry King, Paula Zahn, the Rev. Al Sharpton, scribes Walter Mosley, Anna Deavere Smith, Fran Lebowitz, Pete Hamill and Calvin Trillin. Among the others attending were Anna Wintour, John Kerry's sister, Peggy, Mark Green and Bob Torricelli.
Introducing her husband, Hillary called Bill "the former president and future best-selling author, Chelsea's father and my constituent."
"I want to thank the senator," Bill told her, adding, "as one of your constituents, I'd like to see sewer and natural-gas systems expanded in Westchester [where they live]." The ex-prez also revealed that the "worst thing" about being a civilian again was "walking into a room and not having a song played."
Security at the invitation-only bash was tight, but one protester outside was able to wave a sign criticizing the former president for both his infidelity and his failure to capture Osama bin Laden.
The 957-page, $35 book from Alfred A. Knopf — which Clinton bragged he completed without the help of a ghostwriter — hit stores at midnight. It's an instant bestseller, with a first printing of 1.5 million copies and an advance-copy order already past 2 million.
This despite a rash of cold-to-lukewarm reviews, including a blast from The New York Times, which ripped parts of it as "sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull."
The tome includes Clinton's dramatic admission that he had Oval Office sex sessions with intern Monica Lewinsky "because I could," and how Hillary made him sleep on the couch.
MONICA Lewinsky — in Little Rock, Ark., for a wedding this past weekend — was invited to tour the Clinton Presidential Library. But she declined.
The former White House intern — a bridesmaid of Ashley Linus Raines, her best friend from their days in the West Wing during the Bill Clinton administration — was overheard at the reception laughing with other guests about a phone call a member of the wedding party received.
Sources say the caller was one of the directors of the Clinton Presidential Library offering out-of-town guests an exclusive peek at the unfinished shrine to the ex-president. And the Clintonite specifically asked "if Monica would be joining them."
Lewinsky, who has consistently turned down requests for interviews and tried to maintain a low profile, was overheard expressing her surprise that anyone would think she'd accept such an invitation. And she had a good laugh imagining the scene if she had accepted and taken a tour of the Clinton cathedral, being led like a lamb into the lions' den.
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix_u.htm
But he told the programme that he saw sleeping on the sofa as a positive sign.
"I thought that in a funny way the fact that I was sleeping on the couch and they were still in the same house with me meant that Hilary and Chelsea hadn't given up on me," he said.
"I figured out that I was getting a whipping at home where I should have gotten it. I felt that everything they [Hillary and daughter Chelsea] wanted to say or do to me, they had an absolute right to do so.
"The fact that I was still able to stay under the same roof... I thought that was progress.
"I was just glad to be among the living there at home and frankly, perhaps I shouldn't acknowledge this, but it was a relief to have to go to work and concentrate on something else because otherwise I would have nothing to think about all day long but what a bad fella I'd been."
From the BBC interview
Where would she have gone, to Janet Reno's? (sorry for any unbearable thoughts that suggestion may conjure up.:)
Re: the lying sack of dirt.
Can you believe we're being dragged thru all this again?!!
I guess my Toon antenna is still working...I can see right through his agenda. He knows conservatives are sick and tired of him and have NO desire to go on the talk shows re-arguing his sex-and-lies escapades. So now he's putting out his own version of history (adamently and rudely) knowing it would be a huge mistake for conservatives to rise to the bait. Jaw, jaw, jaw. We saw it so many times in the 90's. (Come to think of it, interesting that he and O.J. are trying to recreate their personal histories at the same time!).
I don't blame conservatives for not wanting to get in that pig sty with Clinton again. If we're so sick of him, don't ya think a lot of Americans must feel the same way? Just go away, already!!!!
When even the NY Times and the AP "dis" Blubba's book, you know we've entered a parallel universe. As for being sick of him, I absolutely cannot endure ten seconds of his self-serving, disingenuous blather, and so have avoided the Rather lovefest, Oprah and every other occasion he's seized to put his big red face on the TV screen.
Cindy Adams writes:
BILL CLINTON. Of whom you have (endlessly) heard. As I've reported, he handed in his 1,000-page book, which his editors desperately wanted him to cut, but which he wouldn't, but which cleverly got winnowed down to 950 pages because, as Knopf might've put it, "Honey, we shrunk the type." Well, guess what? The old boy's got more in him — and we are not speaking of Monica here.
On account of he was terminally squeezed to hack out some of his maunderings and meanderings, stuff's left over which he doesn't want left over. I mean the man stuck in everything but maybe a passing conversation with some pro in a men's room in Arkansas. William Jefferson has heretofore and forthwith predetermined he has at least — at least — two more books left in him. Two more. Two. Understand, his original handed-in draft, and he was still at that moment writing and adding, ran 2,400 pages. Not even Methuselah's life was that full.
Former President Clinton is, as we speak, already in first-stage negotiations for the next installments.
Looks like those pumpkin cookies are a bit hard on the ol' digestive system (or maybe it's just that caviar and champagne she and Lovey shared last night).
They're admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Holy Father's hat (zucchetto) blows off his head and out into the water. Secret Service guys start to launch a boat, but President Bush waves them off, saying, "Wait, wait. I'll take care of this. Don't worry."
Bush silently bows his head for a moment, mutters a few inaudible words, takes a final look towards the heavens, steps over the yacht's railing, sets his feet on the surface of the water, walks out to the floating zucchetto, bends over, picks the wet hat up, turns around, walks back to the yacht, and climbs back aboard.
Amid stunned silence and wide-eyed frozen faces, he hands the dripping hat to the Pope.
The next morning, editorials asking roughly the same rhetorical question appear in the New York Times, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Buffalo News, the Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal, the Minneapolis Tribune, the Denver Post, the Albuquerque Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, BBC Online, Le Monde, Libération, Le Figaro, Der Spiegel, and Stern: "How could Americans vote for a man who can't even swim?!" source
How many times did toon tell us that money means nothing to him?
GWB and Ronald Reagan made their fortunes BEFORE running for office.
Toon made his fortune BY being president.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
