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Today was so nice outside…it was like I could finally breath a little and not feel like I was choking on the thick, and gross, NYC air. For those of you who are here…you know what I mean, my GOD did summer finally arrive. We got spoiled though, no 90 degree days till August!! Well, it seems to be coming to an end…
I’m headed off to Colorado for my last summer adventure. I think the river may be too small to tube in…but darn it all…I sure am going to try!! If any of you have ever NOT been to Colorado, especially during the summer…I highly suggest you go. It is so relaxing, fun, and beautiful. I cannot wait to go.
When I get back…actually, technically its already started, but I’ll be going to Grad School…online w/Duquesne University. I’m getting my MS in Community Leadership. I’m really excited…I totally love school, and have missed it the past 4 years. But…that means that I’m really not going to be posting much on here now. With Grad School on top of all my KittyKind stuff on top of my paying gig and my personal life (what I’ve got left of one, anyway) I’m going to be one busy person.
So…I’ll try to post periodically…let you know the latest stupid NY story…keep you tuned in on KK Cats for adoption…post ‘all the good news in the world’…and let you know about my favorite people and animals…but if you dont hear from me for awhile, trust me…I havn’t died…just probably managing to get some sleep in.
Peace out!
I was cruisin around Anderson Cooper’s 360 and came across this article from Rolling Stone. Its pretty cool when you think about it. I mean, sure…there’s been blunders, and things could be better…but think of where we were, and how NOT long ago that was. Not long at all!! Its only been 200 days…I think he’s done wonderful things in that amount of time. Keep it up Barack.
Program note:For President Obama’s 200 day mark, we’ll be talking to senior political analyst David Gergen on AC360° tonight at 10pm ET.
Rolling Stone
During Franklin Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office, congress granted every request the new president made. Barack Obama, despite enjoying a decisive majority in both houses of Congress, hasn’t been so fortunate. His economic stimulus package failed to win a single Republican vote in the House, and conservative members of his own party are trying to block his ambitious plans to provide universal health care and curb global warming. What’s more, Obama himself has alarmed supporters by compromising on key issues, and he has yet to flex his political muscle by mobilizing the tech-savvy network of grass-roots activists he assembled during last year’s campaign. All of which raises the question: Is Obama raising false hopes? Or does he have what it takes to deliver real change?
To assess Obama’s performance during his first six months in office, we sat down in our New York offices with three of America’s leading political observers. David Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, served in the White Houses of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics. Michael Moore is the Academy Award-winning director of Bowling for Columbine and Sicko; his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, will premiere on October 2nd.
Well, after a wonderfully short 6 days as our August Cat of the Month, Cosmo was adopted!! He was a beautiful old soul, 10 years! He has been with us for a little bit now, so this is wonderful news. So…our dear little miss Julie is getting a second month in the spotlight. Shes a very beautiful little girl who just wants some friends to play with and cuddle up to. Are you that person? Know someone who is? Help get Julie adopted!! Our dear Valentina is still waiting too, though she’s back in the adoption center.
Now, on to August’s Foster Care Favorites! Learn about these little buggers and spread the word!!
I may have found my new favorite book. Ok, maybe not my favorite of all time, but this book…its amazing. Where do I begin…I guess I’ll begin with the author, Tim Sandlin. Tim Sandlin has long been one of my favorite authors, introduced to me by my good friend Kelsey…we both were in love with his wild and quircky stories of 13 year old pregnancies, drunkin escapades, and now the glorious experience of the sixties generation when they are 80.
This book, I fell in love. From the moment I saw the cover, I knew I was in for a trip…and what a trip it was. I’ve long idalized the sixties generation. The flower children. I’ve often thought I was born in the wrong generation…but I think alot of my generation thinks that. Probably much to do with being the children of that generation. But at least if I cannot be a part of that generation, I’m a child of the generation that changed the nation.
Sorry, enough blabbing, onto the book. I’m not great at giving reviews, especially when something touched me the way this did. So here are a few of my favorite reviews about this book. All I can add, is that its a must read!!
“After crafting uproarious tales about fatherhood (Social Blunders, 1995) and Washington sleaze (Honey Don’t, 2003), Sandlin asks, What will the age of assisted living be like for boomers who longed for the Age of Aquarius? It’s 2022, and Guy Fontaine, a widower from Oklahoma, finds himself committed to a California old-folks facility where the flamboyant residents have reverted to the pursuits of their glory days, the late 1960s. Pot smoking, group sex, a rock band called Acid Reflux, cliques formed according to where you were during the Summer of Love, and the motto “don’t trust anyone under sixty” all make for a wild, sometimes grotesque milieu overseen by a bitchy director who treats the oldsters like idiot children and a staff doctor who overmedicates them. When Guy inadvertently jump-starts an insurrection, the old hippies, old hands at civil disobedience, take over the compound. Hilarious in the fine-tuned details and rapid-fire dialogue, Sandlin’s antic yet precision-aimed and unfailingly entertaining novel is a mordantly witty, covertly poignant, and genuinely insightful dissection of our fear and loathing of old age.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist
“Part Cuckoo’s Nest, part Acid Test, and part Alamo, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty shows us that to awaken the passion and idealism we thought flatlined at thirty, we need only to slip it a dose of sunshine and poke it with stick of sandalwood. Tim Sandlin takes us on a comic flashback to the future that can give you the giggles and the willies at the same time. What a trip! Pound for pound, Tim’s stuff is as tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy novel thing.” – Christopher Moore – best selling author
“Tim Sandlin’s new novel, Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty, makes you scared shitless of growing old while looking forward to it at the same time. He states that sometime in the future, librarians will move this book from fiction to non-fiction, and I have every inclination to believe him. No matter how bizarre some of the turns in this book; it’s not hard to think that this could be real, right down to Drew Barrymore as Governor of California.
Imagine hippies and boomers, who started a whole new counter culture, getting so old that their children think they can’t take care of themselves anymore. An assisted living facility is just what these people have rebelled against their whole lives: the establishment. Here they are, older, wiser (most of the time) and with much more worldly experience than the ones taking care of them. Now they are part of a booming business, with their children all too eager to drop them off, take their money and discard them once and for all.
Thrown right into the middle of all this is Guy Fontaine. Unlike the other residents, he was never a hippie, never did drugs or protested, and wasn’t at Woodstock. He’s from Oklahoma after all. But one trait they all share is that they know for sure, yet refuse to believe that they are getting old before their time. When a resident’s cat is confiscated, and the shit hits the fan at Mission Pescadero, Guy finds himself as the unlikely leader of the aging bunch, who prove that they still have plenty to offer, with mostly hilarious and sometimes tragic results.
Throw in Viagra, LSD, pot, orgies, protests, rock concerts, dementia, Alzheimer’s, catheters and more outrageous characters than any other Sandlin book, and you’ve got a novel destined to bridge the gap between generations. I’ve never before read a book that I could recommend to my sixty year-old father, my fifty year-old uncle, my forty year-old friend, my thirty-year old wife and my twenty year-old brother. And once they read it, I’m sure there are many more people of different ages that they would recommend it to. And the reason is that Tim’s themes are universal without being set in a conventional setting. Amidst all the craziness going around at the facility, new love is found, death is dealt with, friendships are made and broken, and happiness is both a fleeting memory and also right around the corner. Within ten pages of this book, I went from snorting out loud laughing to being choked up with tears. And not just once, but consistently throughout. Tim is one of those rare authors that makes me have feelings that are almost identical to those I’ve had in actual life situations, kind of like a karmic deja vu.” – Curt Pasisz, www.timsandlin.com
