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Ya know, there are times when you wonder what in hell you ever did to have the privilege of being able to call such a fantastic and insightful person “friend”.

This is one of them.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to express outrage at conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh for saying he wanted President Obama to “fail.” – http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/27/dems-launch-online-petition-rush-limbaugh/

Now, I don’t have any real use for Mr. Limbaugh.   I find his critical thinking skills inadequate, I believe his primary motivation is attention and a fat bank balance, and I find his rhetorical skills gallingly under par.   I also think this is generally what you’re going to find in most political commentators you encounter if it’s their living, I really don’t care what the political view that they visibly espouse are.

But if you don’t believe in someone’s right to say something you don’t believe in, you don’t believe in free speech. Here’s the catch, when Mr. Limbaugh says something I don’t like, I’m allowed to say, “I don’t like that.”

I think the indignation on both sides illustrate to me more than ever that most people don’t get the point of freedom, nor do they really want to.

I’m watching Star Wars: A New Hope with my family.

I’ve told my children what an influence Star Wars was on me, but I’m pretty sure they don’t fully grok it.  How could they?  They don’ t have the perspective.

But I remember how it exploded on my brain as a child.  It was the first image I had of a strong woman in film.  I mean here was this Princess that shot bad guys and bullied fools and gave orders instead of screaming and melting into a little cotton candy mess of tears when things went wrong.

Oh sure, there was Wonder Woman, but she was too clearly meant to be eye candy (and her fight scenes never looked convincing to my untutored eye).  And there was the Bionic Woman.  But she wasn’t in charge.  Leia was the first female leader I encountered in fiction.

Certainly Star Wars is how I became a science fiction fan — that and a story by Issac Asimov in my fourth grade reading book called, “The Fun They Had”.

I have to wonder what will be the benchmark media (book, TV, movie, whatever) for my kids that exploded on their brains and made them think in a new way.

Oh, and I just gotta say:

Han Shot First!

I’m about to teach a teacher how to use a snowblower.

Now, we’re both geeks.  I told him I was going to talk him through how to use the snowblower by talking him through it just like I teach computer applications.  He got a pained look and said, “Yes, but I can’t right click on a snowblower for a help file if I forget what you said!”

I have simply not felt like working out “properly” lately.  I just am not into it for whatever reason.

So, because if I don’t move I feel bad, and I get blue, I’m going to use a cute little metaphor to keep myself motivated to do a minimum.

It’s called Urban Ranger and was invented by Reinhard Engels, the same guy who wrote the No S Diet.

Engels combines a serious level of geekiness with some rather down-to-earth sensibility.  Why yes, I like his Everyday Systems.  Self-improvement that doesn’t take oneself so damn seriously is a Good thing.

The concept of Urban Ranger is mostly a mental image to get you to walk¹.  We all know walking is great exercise.  It’s what the human body is built for.  While I love swimming, I did start doing it because it hurt to walk. The fitness work I’ve done in the past couple of years has built up enough of a baseline so it is no longer painful for me to walk, even when I’ve been crap about workouts.

So, for the month of December, I’m going to walk.  If I can hoof it wherever I need to go, that’s what I am going to do.  I will walk to my job at the gym.  I will walk to the grocery store.  That alone will force me to walk more often because you can’t carry a week’s worth of groceries in a backpack.

If I don’t have anywhere I have to go, I will make a lunch hour for myself  and walk to the library and see if I can find some audiobooks on CD or something equally as interesting.

I know, I “should” be going to the gym, ‘specially since I’m workin’ there and all.   There’s nothing there I’m finding more interesting than walking at the moment, so walking it is.

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¹ Do check out the Urban Ranger article. His Aragorn explanation is priceless!  I was imagining a sword strapped to my back as I went to the grocery store today.  Don’t laugh at me. Check it out.

There would be times when I’d do some quirky thing and my father would shake his head a little ruefully and a little fondly and comment, “Ruby’s coming out in you.”

Ruby was my father’s mother.  In many ways, I’m a great deal like her, though with a large enough helping of my maternal grandmother to horrify her if she ever really knew me well.  Ruby was an odd duck.   She was cranky and didn’t like people much, but she’d always do what she felt was Right, so her behavior was moderately benevolent most of the time, though never warm.

I was just making deviled eggs to bring to a Thanksgiving gathering and was griping to myself because the plate didn’t look all neat and beautiful and perfect.  That was Grandma all over — no matter what she did, it never measured up in her own mind.  She used to tell me a story of her childhood where she and her younger sisters were canning peaches.  Her younger sister was moving slowly, arranging everything perfectly and beautifully in the jar while my great-grandmother was trying to hurry them along, saying that what it looked like didn’t matter, that they needed to get the chore done!  My great-aunt retorted that when she was grown-up, that she was going to arrange the peaches in the jar so that they’re pretty.

Grandma commented that she felt like she’d be lucky to have peaches, never mind getting them pretty in the jar.

Grandma’s canned peaches weren’t pretty, fair enough.  I can tell you they tasted great. I told her so.  She smiled a little, so I know she was pleased.  She didn’t smile much.

I often wonder if that was a source of friction between my mother and Ruby.  Mom is good at pretty –it’s just this natural thing to her.  I wonder if it bothered my grandmother.  I ‘spect it did.  I used to wonder if that was part of the distance between us, since Grandma knew I was used to pretty surroundings.  I don’t think I ever told her it was okay not to be good at pretty and making everything look perfect.  I’m not neat-handed.  If I bake a pie, it’s not going to look professional.  It’ll taste great, ’cause I am a good cook (though Grandma’s pies were far superior to anything I can do), but it’s not gonna be a showpiece.

Whenever I worry about making things pretty enough, I think of that story in Grandma’s kitchen eating those sweet canned peaches and thinking that I didn’t give a damn how pretty her peaches were.  Pretty’s great and goodness knows I enjoy it.  But in her scrubbed kitchen with the worn out dishtowels and the ancient fridge with the old-fashioned locking handle, there was something to admire, too.  Those frugal home-canned peaches she’d grown herself spoke of a self-made, handmade life that I don’t think she ever knew how much I admired.  The peaches were delicious, but even better, it felt great that Grandma was willing to say something personal and vulnerable to me.

My son wanted to learn how to build a fire in a wood stove.

I decided to teach him when I realized I was teaching him Bad Fire Safety as he was shoveling out the ashes.

You see, we have a bucket for ashes, but it’s plastic.  Means you can only put cold to the touch and well scattered ashes in it.  If  it feels even comfortable to the touch and you’ve had a fire in less than 48 hours, you better be using a metal ash bin.  I gave him a big lecture on that and explained that ashes often have live coals in them even if you think they don’t.

After that, I did teach him how to light a fire in the stove and gave him a big lecture on why he must never ever do that unless the adults are in the house. On the other hand, if he learns how to do it safely, that’s a Good Thing.  I’m teaching him how to use the damper to regulate temperature and all that smack. (Why yes, we have recently-tested fire alarms in our house!)

All of this concern comes from a childhood of great good luck.  I remember a couple of chimney fires when I was a child, both from the wood stove and various fireplaces — usually started by my pyromaniac maternal grandmother burning all the Christmas wrapping in the fireplace and a lit bit flying up the not too recently cleaned chimney.  Virginia winters are notoriously wet, so sparks didn’t catch fire on the roof during these episodes.  Each time there was really no more damage than a big scare, but it sure does make an impression.

‘Course, as much as we joke about Nanny being a pyro, the best fire story is on the other side of the family.

My paternal grandfather was a volunteer fireman in Chesterfield County, VA for many years.  Being community-minded, my grandmother also participated in the women’s auxiliary.    They had a rather large plot for a small suburban home — large enough to have a garden and a shed where they raised chickens for awhile.  I say for awhile, because it turned out that my father and his siblings were quite reluctant to eat animals they’d gotten to know, much to the digust of my farmgirl grandmother.

Anyway, they did stop raising chickens and after awhile, the shed fell into disrepair and needed to be disposed of.  One evening, Granddaddy decided that was the day they needed to get rid of the chicken shed and back at this time, laws about burning refuse weren’t so strict as they are now, so he decided to burn it.

“Now Garfield, I’m off to the auxiliary meeting,” says Grandma. “You make sure that you knock that shed down before you set it on fire.”

“Ruby, I’m a fireman!”  says Granddaddy in exasperation. “I know it’s illegal to set fire to a standing building.”

“Just be sure it’s knocked down,” says Grandma before she leaves for her meeting.

After she leaves, Granddaddy and the children go out back to knock down the old chicken shed.  They do so.  Well, sort of.

You see, according to Granddaddy, if the roof was touching the ground, then the building was knocked down, making it totally legal to set it on fire¹.

Meanwhile Grandma is at the fire station getting herself a cup of coffee and sitting down by her neighbor when the alarm goes off, making everyone jump.

You know whose house the fire trucks came to, don’t you?

It’s really rather surprising Grandma didn’t die of embarrassment right then and there.  Come to think of it, it’s actually a wonder that I ever knew Granddaddy at all.  She had a temper on her, Ruby did.

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¹Granddaddy, being a preacher’s kid, was more attached to misbehaving then claiming the virtue of the letter of the law than most.

I think that what’s going on is that people need to interact to a degree, even the cranky introvert, and watching TV is kind of like putting artificial sugar in a hummingbird feeder. It tastes like you’re feeding the need while you’re starving to death.

We’re gearing up for winter here and got a load of firewood.  I was chuckling as I was helping to stack it that I was experiencing some flashbacks.

I recall the energy crunch of the 1970s pretty clearly even though I was a little kid.  My parents built a house with electric heat and after a $400 heating bill (remember this was the 1970s.  The dollar was larger), Daddy got a wood stove.

We didn’t buy firewood.  There was a lot of building going on back then, and we’d follow behind loggers clearing land to get the laps — tops of the trees that were too narrow to be useful in logging, but certainly big enough to burn.  At the time, it was free for the taking. We’d just take our station wagon out into the woods, Daddy with his chainsaw and Mom, my brother and I would work together to get the logs into the back of Clyde (We named the station wagon after the camel in the song Ahab the Arab).  God, did my brother and I whine and complain about those trips.  We lived in a neighborhood where most of the Daddies had government jobs just like ours did.  We were the only kids we knew of that were hauling wood and we were indignant.  Dad would usually retort, “You like going to the beach and Disney World, don’t you?  This is how we can afford it!”  That didn’t silence us nearly as well as it should have.  Why I never internalized that I was doing real work that contributed to those things, I do not know.  If I had, I’d’ve been as proud of it as any of the other things I bought with money I’d earned myself, I think.   Obviously my parents looked at it that way, or Daddy wouldn’t have made such a retort in a moment of irritation.

Daddy would always try to get logs less than nine inches in diameter.   That would fit into the stove and he wouldn’t have to split much wood.   We didn’t have powered log splitter, but used a modified heavy axe with two levers on either side called a Chopper.  There’s a video at the site that shows how it works. It’s quite clever.  The site says it has been around since 1977, so we must have bought one of the the first ones made.  I was in my mid-teens before I was strong enough to be able to split a log using it, and was pretty stoked when I managed it.

After the wood was cut and split, my brother and I stacked it.  Yes, there was whining and complaining about this, too.  Not only did we have to stack wood, it had to be stacked neat and pretty.  Yes, yes, a neatly-stacked woodpile is safer and more stable.  My brother and I were convinced that it was more because of my mother’s sense of aesthetics.

We did not bring the wood through a door into the house, tracking dirt and stuff everywhere.  Nope, not in my mother’s house!  The wood stove was in the laundry room in the basement where Daddy had rigged a vent system with a thermostat and air blower to send warm air around the rest of the house.  The room in the basement had a window.  When the woodbox needed filling, my brother or I (or more likely both if we were being especial pains in the ass) went outside after dinner to push logs through the window to either Mom or Daddy to stack and fill the woodbox.  As we got old enough to stack the wood well downstairs, we’d usually fight over who got to stay inside and stack the wood that was passed through that window.

When I started dating, it was not unusual for boyfriends to be helping with this…