I read the newspaper every day, and I like to consider myself fairly well informed, but I didn’t listen to or read transcripts of the State of the Union Address.  Like most Americans, I didn’t vote for Bush.  Not that it made a difference.  So anyway, I prefer to not really listen to him, relying instead on reports in the paper, which allow me to take a break in between horrified cringes.  

Not so last night, though.  We were watching The Daily Show (probably the most fair and balanced news show on the air!!) and they played excerpts from the address.  Thank goodness for comedy, because it wasn’t until well after the show was over that it finally sunk in that one of our nation’s new priorities is eliminating steroid use.  Steroid use, people!!  Starvation, inadequate medical care, poor education, rising crime, all these things that are rampant enough in society to have a negative impact upon hundreds of thousands of lives, all take a backseat to preventing steroid use!  These are your tax dollars at work.  

I suppose it’s important that we not add tolerance of drug-enhanced athletes to the list of things for which other countries despise us.  Let’s stop the tide with warmongering and gun violence and rude tourists.  We’ve already got a bad reputation for those, so there’s no need to fix them, right?  Embarrassment doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel right now.  I want a big neon sign to wear that says “I didn’t vote for him.”

Here are a couple of things that confuse me when I have time to think about them.

First of all, why do day-of-the-week panties come in packs of six? Who decides which day you go without underwear, and how do they decide it? Is it some kind of religious thing? (I usually think of this while folding laundry, which happens at least 5 days a week.)

Also, why is it that when people cross the street when a car’s coming, they run until they’re actually in front of the car, and then slow down to a leisurely saunter?

Right before Christmas, hubby decided to fix the slow drain in the upstairs bathroom.  Company was coming, many parties were planned, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. 

As we’ve come to expect, we’d be in trouble if the previous owner had done any repair work, and unfortunately, he had. 

We were in trouble. 

Snaking the drain didn’t work, so he decided to take it apart, clean it, and put it back together again. 

Well, part of the drain wasn’t really drain, just duct tape painted to disguise it as a drain, so putting it back together was out of the question. 

It’s a good thing we’ve got four other potties in the house. 

Old walls were knocked down.  New plumbing and wiring was installed.  New wall was installed.

Then it was my turn.  Carolyn, who is the primary user of this room, decided on an undersea theme.  I picked out colors to match to shower curtain, and did a faux finish on the walls, then got that Ralph Lauren paint with the sand in it and redid the floors.  It really does look like it’s underwater. 

The paint companies would have you believe that you need all kinds of additional purchases to do this kind of stuff, but really all you do is paint a background color all over, then dilute your next color 50% with water and arm yourself with gloves and a whole bunch of Bounty paper towels.  Experiment with different styles on cardboard or (if you live in a fixer-upper like we do) leftover pieces of drywall. 

Soooooo. . .finally the paint is done, we get the sink and the commode installed by our wonderful neighbor who’s a plumber, and the only thing left to do is put the little fish we cut out from the wallpaper that matches the shower curtain all over the walls. 

Yeah, maybe a towel bar or two would help.